



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 
OLD NEW ORLEANS 




The Author at Twenty-two 
Painted by Moise 



SOCIAL LIFE IN 
OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Being Recollections of my Girlhood 



BY 



ELIZA RIPLEY 




ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

MCMXII 






Copyright, iqi2, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY' 



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% 



Printed in the United States of America 



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CI.A328530 
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To 
MY CHILDREN 

and 

MY CHILDREN'S CHILDREN 

a?id to 
THEIR CHILDREN TO COME 



FOREWORD 

Far more vivid than the twilight of the days in 
which I dwell, there rises before my inner eye the 
vision, aglow in Southern sunshine, of the days that 
are gone, never to return, but which formed the 
early chapters of a life that has been lived, that can 
never be lived again. 

Many of the following stories are oft-told tales 
at my fireside — others were written to record 
phases of the patriarchal existence before the war 
which has so utterly passed away. 

They have been printed from time to time in the 
pages of the New Orleans Times-Democrat, the 
editor of which has very kindly consented to their 
publication in this form. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. Ni:w Orleans Children of 1840 . 
New Orleans Schools and Teachers i 

THE Forties .... 
Boarding School in the Forties . 
Picayune Days .... 

Domestic Science Seventy Years Ago 
VI. A Fashionable Function in 1842 . 
VII. New Year's of Old .... 

New Orleans Shops and Shopping i; 

THE Forties .... 
The Old French Opera House 
Mural Decorations and Portraits of 

the Past .... 

Thoughts of Old .... 
Wedding Customs Then and Now 
A Country Wedding in 1846 . 
The Belles and Beaux of Forty . 
As It Was in My Day 



II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 



VIII. 

IX. 
X. 



XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 



Fancy Dress Ball at the Mint in 1850 



Dr. Clapp's Church 

Old Daguerreotypes 

Steamboat and Stage Seventy Years 

Ago 

XX. Hotel at Pass Christian in 1849 • 
XXI. Old Music Books .... 
XXII. The Songs of Long Ago 



PAGE 
I 

7 
14 
^2, 
31 
42 

50 

58 
65 

71 
80 

87 
94 

lOI 

107 
116 
120 
125 

130 
140 
146 
153 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

XXIII. A Ramble Through the Old City 

XXIV. "Old Creole Days" and Ways 

XXV. A Visit to Valcour Aime Plantation . 

XXVI. The Old Plantation Life 

XXVII. People I Have Entertained . 

XXVIII. A Monument to Mammies 

XXIX. Mary Ann and Martha Ann 

XXX. When Lexington Won the Race . 

XXXI. Louisiana State Fair Fifty Years Ago 

XXXII. The Last Christmas .... 

XXXIII. A Wedding in War Time 

XXXIV. Substitutes 

XXXV. An Unrecorded Bit of New Orleans 

History ...... 

XXXVI. Cuban Days in War Times . 

XXXVII. "We Shall Know Each Other There" 

XXXVIII. A Ramble Through New Orleans 
With Brush and Easel 

XXXIX. A Visit of Tender Memories 
Biographical Note . . . . . 



PAGE 

182 
191 
200 
209 
216 

250 
256 
264 

280 
287 
295 

303 
320 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Author at Twenty-two . 
Richard Henry Chinn 
Market Doorway .... 
A New Orleans Yard and Cistern . 
Door in the French Market . 
Courtyard on Carondalet Street . 
The Old French Opera House 
Typical Old New Orleans Dwelling 
A Creole Parterre .... 
St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans 
Augusta Slocomb Urquhart . 
Steamboat on the Mississippi 
American Stagecoach 
Seal of the City of New Orleans . 
Exchange Alley .... 

Henry Clay 

Arlington Plantation on the Mississippi 
James Alexander McHatton . 

The Calaboose 

A Courtyard in the French Quarter 
"Behold a Wrecked Fountain" 
"A Queer House Opposite" . 

St. Roch 

The Author 

A New Orleans Cemetery 



Facing 



Facing 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 
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24 

33 

38 

45 
66 

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81 
III 
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305 
308 

311 
316 

324 
326 



Facing 

Facing 
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Facing 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD 

NEW ORLEANS 

I 

NEW ORLEANS CHILDREN OF 184O 

CHILDREN should be seen and not heard." 
Children were neither seen nor heard in 
the days of which I write, the days of 
1840. They led the simple life, going and com- 
ing in their own unobtrusive way, making no stir 
in fashionable circles, with laces and flounces and 
feathered hats. There were no ready-made gar- 
ments then for grown-ups, much less for children. 
It was before California gold mines, before the 
Mexican war, before money was so abundant that 
we children could turn up our little noses at a 
picayune. I recall the time when Alfred Munroe 
descended from Boston upon the mercantile world 
of New Orleans, and opened on Camp Street a 
"one price" clothing store for men. Nobody had 
ever heard of one price, and no deviation, for 
anything, from a chicken to a plantation. The fun 

I 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of hectoring over price, and feeling, no matter how 
the trade ended, you had a bargain after all, was de- 
nied the customers of Mr. Alfred Munroe. The 
innovation was startling, but Munroe retired with 
a fortune in course of time. 

Children's clothes were homemade. A little wool 
shawl for the shoulders did duty for common use. 
A pelisse made out of an old one of mother's, or 
some remnant found in the house, was fine for Sun- 
day wear. Pantalettes of linen, straight and nar- 
row and untrimmed, fell over our modest little legs 
to our very shoetops. Our dresses were equally 
simple and equally "cut down and made over." 
Pantalettes were white, but I recall, with a dismal 
smile, that when I was put into what might be 
called unmitigated mourning for a brother, my pan- 
talettes matched my dresses, black bombazine or 
black alpaca. 

Our amusements were of the simplest. My 
father's house on Canal Street had a flat roof, well 
protected by parapets, so it furnished a grand playr 
ground for the children of the neighborhood. 
Judge Story lived next door and Sid and Ben Story 
enjoyed to the full the advantages of that roof, 
where all could romp and jump rope to their heart's 
content. The neutral ground, that is now a cen- 
ter for innumerable lines of street cars, was at that 

2 



NEW ORLEANS CHILDREN OF 1840 

time an open, ungarnished, untrimmed, untended 
strip of waste land. An Italian banana and orange 
man cleared a space among the bushes and rank 
weeds and erected a rude fruit stall where later 
Clay's statue stood. A quadroon woman had a cof- 
fee stand, in the early mornings, at the next corner, 
opposite my father's house. It could not have been 
much beyond Claiborne Street that we children 
went crawfishing in the ditches that bounded each 
side of that neutral ground, for we walked, and it 
was not considered far. 

The Farmers' and Traders' Bank was on Canal 
Street, and the family of Mr. Bell, the cashier, lived 
over the bank. There were children there and a 
governess, who went fishing with us. We rarely 
caught anything and had no use for it when we did. 

Sometimes I was permitted to go to market with 
John, way down to the old French Market. We 
had to start early, before the shops on Chartres 
Street were open, and the boys busy with scoops 
watered the roadway from brimming gutters. John 
and I hurried past. Once at market we rushed 
from stall to stall, filling our basket, John forgetting 
nothing that had been ordered, and always care- 
fully remembering one most important item, the 
saving of at least a picayune out of the market 
money for a cup of coffee at Manette's stall. I 

3 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

drank half the coffee and took one of the little 
cakes. John finished the repast and "dreened" the 
cup, and with the remark, "We won't say anything 
about this," we started toward home. We had to 
stop, though, at a bird store, on the square above 
the Cathedral, look at the birds, chaff the noisy par- 
rots, watch the antics of the monkeys, and see the 
man hang up his strings of corals and fix his shells 
in the window, ready for the day's business. We 
could scarcely tear ourselves away, it was so inter- 
esting; but a reminder that the wax head at Dr. 
De Leon's dentist's door would be "put out by this 
time," hurried me to see that wonderful bit of 
mechanism open and shut its mouth, first with a row 
of teeth, then revealing an empty cavern. How I 
watched, wondered and admired that awfully arti- 
ficial wax face ! These occasional market trips — 
and walks with older members of the family — were 
the sum of my or any other child's recreation 

Once, and only once, there was a party! The 
little Maybins had a party and every child I knew 
was invited. The Maybins lived somewhere back 
of Poydras Market. I recall we had to walk down 
Poydras Street, beyond the market, and turn to 
the right onto a street that perhaps had a name, 
but I never heard it. 

The home was detached, and surrounded by 

4 



NEW ORLEANS CHILDREN OF 1840 

ample grounds; quantities of fig trees, thickets of 
running roses and in damp places clusters of 
palmetto and blooming flags. We little Invited 
guests were promptly on the spot at 4 P. M., and as 
promptly off the spot at early candlelight. I am 
sure no debutantes ever had a better time than did 
we little girls in pantalettes and pigtails. We 
danced; Miss Sarah Strawbrldge played for us, and 
we all knew how to dance. Didn't we belong to 
Mme. Arraline Brooks' dancing school? 

The corner of Camp and Julia Streets, diagonally 
across from the then fashionable 13 Buildings, was 
occupied by Mme. Arraline Brooks, a teacher of 
dancing. Her school (studio or parlor it would be 
called now) was on the second floor of Armory 
Hall, and there we children — she had an immense 
class, too — learned all the fancy whirls and "heel 
and toe" steps of the Intricate polka, which was 
danced in sets of eight, like old-time quadrilles. 
Mme. Arraline wore in the classroom short skirts 
and pantalettes, so we had a good sight of her 
feet as she pirouetted about, as agile as a ballet 
dancer. 

By and by, at a signal from Miss Sarah, who 
had been having a confidential and persuasive inter- 
view with a little miss, we were all placed with our 
backs to the wall and a space cleared. Miss Sarah 
3 r 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

struck a few notes, and little Tenie Slocomb danced 
the "Highland fling." Very beautiful was the little 
sylph in white muslin, her short sleeves tied with 
blue ribbons, and she so graceful and lovely. It 
comes to me to-day with a thrill, when I compare 
the companion picture — of a pale, delicate, dainty 
old lady, with silvered hair and tottering step, on 
the bank of a foreign river. It is not easy to bridge 
the seventy years (such a short span, too, it is) be- 
tween the two. Then the march from "Norma" 
started us to the room for refreshments. It is full 
forty years since I have heard that old familiar air, 
but for thirty years after that date I did not hear 
it that the impulse to march to lemonade and sponge 
cake did not seize me. 

Alack-a-day! Almost all of us have marched 
away. 



II 



NEW ORLEANS SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IN THE 
FORTIES 

OF course, seventy years ago, as in the ages 
past and to come, convents were the places 
for educating young girls in a Catholic 
community. Nevertheless, there have always been 
schools and schools, for those whom it was not ex- 
pedient or convenient to board in a convent. In New 
Orleans the Ursuline Convent was too remote from 
the majority of homes for these day scholars, so 
there were a few schools among the many that come 
to my mind to-day, not that I ever entered one of 
them, but I had girl friends in all. In the thirties 
St. Angelo had a school on Customhouse Street, 
next door to the home of the Zacharies. His 
method of teaching may have been all right, but his 
discipline was objectionable; he had the delinquent 
pupils kneel on brickdust and tacks and there study 
aloud the neglected lesson. Now, brickdust isn't so 
very bad, and tacks only a trifle worse, when one's 
knees are protected by stockings or even pantalettes, 

7 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

but stockings in those days did not extend over 
the knee, and old St. Angelo was sure to see that 
the pantalettes were well rolled up. This method 
of discipline was not acceptable to parents whose 
children came home with bruises and wounds. That 
dominie retired from business before the forties. 

Mme. Granet had a school for girls in the French 
municipality. Elinor Longer, one of my most inti- 
mate friends, attended it, and she used to tell us 
stories that convulsed us with laughter about Ma- 
dame's daughter. Lina had some eye trouble, and 
was forbidden to "exercise the tear glands," but her 
tears flowed copiously when Madame refused to 
submit to her freaks. Thus Lina managed, in a way, 
to run the school, having half holidays and other 
indulgences so dear to the schoolgirl, at her own 
sweet will. 

At the haunted house (I wonder if it is still 
standing and still haunted?) on Royal Street, Mme. 
Delarouelle had a school for demoiselles. Rosa, 
daughter of Judge John M. Duncan, was a scholar 
there. I don't think the madame had any boarders, 
though the house was large and commodious, even 
if it was haunted by ghosts of maltreated negroes. 
The school could not under those circumstances 
have continued many years, for every child knew it 
was dangerous to cross its portals. Our John told 



SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IN THE FORTIES 

me he "seed a skel'ton hand" clutching the grated 
front door once, and he never walked on that side 
of the street thereafter. He even knew a man "dat 
seen eyes widout sockets or sockets widout eyes, he 
dun know which, but dey could see, all de same, and 
they was a looken out'en one of the upstairs win- 
ders." With such gruesome talk many a child was 
put to bed in my young days. 

Doctor, afterward Bishop Hawks, when he was 
rector of Christ Church, then on Canal Street, had 
a school on Girod Street. It was a temporary affair 
and did not continue over a season or two. It 
was entirely conducted by Mrs. Hawks and her 
daughters, so far as I know, for, as before men- 
tioned, I attended none of the schools. 

In 1842 there was a class in Spanish at Mr. Hen- 
nen's house, on Royal Street, near Canal. Sehor 
Marino Cubi y Soler was the teacher of that class; 
a very prosaic and painstaking teacher he was, too, 
notwithstanding his startlingly high flown cognomen. 
Miss Anna Maria and young Alfred Hennen and a 
Dr. Rhodes, from the Belize, as the mouth of the 
Mississippi is called, with a few other grown-ups, 
formed the seiior's class. I was ten years old, but 
was allowed to join with some other members of 
my family, though my mother protested it was non- 
sense for a child like me and a waste of money. 

9 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Father did not agree with her, and after over sixty 
years to think it over, I don't either. When the 
senor's class dispersed I imagine the text-books, of 
which, by the way, he was author, were laid aside. 
But years and years thereafter, during the war, while 
traveling in Mexico, some of the senor's teaching 
came miraculously back to me, bringing with it 
enough Spanish to be of material help in that 
stranger country. 

Another teacher wandered from house to house 
with his "Telemaque" and "colloquial phrases," giv- 
ing lessons in French. Gimarchi, from the name, 
may have been partly, at least, Italian, but he was a 
fine teacher of the sister language. Por supiicsto, 
his itinerary was confined to the American district 
of the city. 

Is it any surprise that the miscellaneous education 
we girls of seventy years ago in New Orleans had 
access to, culminated by fitting us for housewives 
and mothers, instead of writers and platform speak- 
ers, doctors and lawyers — suffragettes? Everybody 
was musical; every girl had music lessons and every 
mother superintended the study and practice of the 
one branch deemed absolutely indispensable to the 
education of a demoiselle. The city was dotted all 
over with music teachers, but Mme. Boyer was, par 
excellence, the most popular. She did not wander 

10 




Richard Henry Chinn 
Painted by Hardin 



SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IN THE FORTIES 

from house to house, but the demoiselles, music roll 
in hand, repaired to her domicile, and received in- 
struction in a music room barely large enough to 
contain a piano, a scholar and a madame who was, 
to say the least, immense in bulk, the style of Creole 
who appears best in a black silk blouse volante. 

Art was not taught, art was not studied, art was 
not appreciated. I mean by art the pencil and the 
brush, so busily wielded in every school now. No 
doubt there were stifled geniuses whose dormant 
talent was never suspected, so utterly ignored were 
the brush and the palette of the lover of art. I call 
to mind the ability evinced by Miss Celestine Eustis 
in the use of the pencil. She occasionally gave a 
friend a glimpse of some of her work, of which, I 
regret to say, she was almost ashamed, not of the 
work, but of the doing it. I recall a sketch taken 
of Judge Eustis' balcony, and a group of young so- 
ciety men; the likenesses, unmistakably those of 
George Eustis and of Destour Foucher, were strik- 
ing. 

M. Devoti, with his violin in a green baize bag, 
was a professor of deportment and dancing. He 
undertook to train two gawky girls of the most awk- 
ward age in my father's parlor. M. Devoti wore 
corsets! and laced, as the saying is, "within an inch 
of his life." He wore a long-tail coat, very full 

II 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

at the spider waist-line, that hung all round him, 
almost to the knees, so he used it like a woman's 
skirt, and could demonstrate to the awkward girls 
the art of holding out their skirts with thumb and 
forefinger, and all the other fingers sticking out stiff 
and straight. Then curtsey! throw out the right 
foot, draw up the left. 

Another important branch of deportment was to 
seat the awkwards stiffly on the extreme edge of a 
chair, fold the hands on the very precarious lap, 
droop the eyes in a pensive way. Then Devoti 
would flourish up and present, with an astonishing 
salaam, a book from the center table. The young 
miss was instructed how to rise, bow and receive 
the book, in the most affected and mechanical style. 
Another exercise was to curtsey, accept old Devoti's 
arm and majestically parade round and round the 
center table. The violin emerged from the baize 
bag, Devoti made it screech a few notes while the 
trio balanced up and down, changed partners and 
promenaded, till the awkwards were completely be- 
wildered and tired out. He then replaced the vio- 
lin, made a profound bow to extended skirts and 
curtseys, admonished the pupils to practice for next 
lesson, and vanished. Thus ended the first lesson. 
Dear me! Pock-marked, spider-waist Devoti is as 
plain to my eye to-day as he was in the flesh, bow- 

12 



SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IN THE FORTIES 

ing, smiling, dancing with flourishing steps as in the 
days of long ago. 

Were those shy girls benefited by that artificial 
training? I opine not. This seems to modern eyes, 
mayhap, a whimsical exaggeration; nevertheless, it is 
a true picture. Devoti's style was indeed the "end 
of an era"; he had no successor. Turveydrop, the 
immortal Turveydrop himself, was not even an imi- 
tator. These old schools and teachers march before 
my mind's eye to-day; very vivid it all is to me, 
though the last of them, and perhaps all those they 
tried to teach, have passed away. Children who 
went to Mme. Granet and Mme. Delarouelle and 
Dr. Hawks and all the other schools of that day, 
sent their daughters, a decade or two later, to 
Mme. Desrayoux. Now she is gone and many of 
the daughters gone also. And it is left to one old 
lady to dig out the past, and recall, possibly to no 
one but herself. New Orleans schools, teachers and 
scholars of seventy years ago. 



Ill 

BOARDING SCHOOL IN THE FORTIES 

I WONDER if the parents of the present do not 
sometimes contrast the fashionable schools in 
which their daughters are being educated with 
the fashionable schools to which their aged mothers, 
mayhap grandmothers, were sent sixty and more 
years ago? Among my possessions that I keep — 
according to the dictum of my grandchildren — "for 
sentimental sake," is a much-worn "Scholar's Com- 
panion," which they scorn to look at when I bring 
it forth, and explain it to be the best speller that 
ever was; and a bent, much overworked crochet 
needle of my schooldays, for we worked with our 
hands as well as with our brains. The boarding 
school to which I refer was not unique, but a typical 
New England seminary of the forties. It was both 
fashionable and popular, but the young ladies were 
not, as now, expected to appear at a 6 o'clock dinner 
in a low neck (oh, my!) gown. 

Lately, passing through the now much expanded 
city to which I was sent, such a young girl, on a 

14 



BOARDING SCHOOL IN THE FORTIES 

sailing ship from New Orleans to New York in the 
early spring of 1847, ^ spent a half hour walking 
on Crown Street looking for No, iii. It was not 
there, not a trace of the building of my day left; nor 
was one, so far as I know, of the girls, my old 
schoolmates, left; all three of the dear, painstaking 
teachers sleeping in the old cemetery, at rest at last 
were they. Every blessed one lives in my memory, 
bright and young, patient and middle-aged — all are 

here to beguile my twilight hours 

The school routine was simple and precise, espe- 
cially the latter. We had duties outside the school- 
room, the performance of which was made pleasant 
and acceptable, as when the freshly laundered clothes 
were stacked in neat little piles on the long table of 
the yellow room on Thursdays, ready for each girl 
to carry to her own room. There were also neat 
little stacks on each girl's desk, of personal articles 
requiring repairs, buttons to replace, holes to patch, 
stockings to darn, and in the schoolroom on 
Thursday afternoons — how some of us hated the 
work! — it was examined and passed upon before 
we were dismissed. The long winter evenings we 
were assembled in the library and one of the 
teachers read to us. I remember one winter we 
had "Guy Mannering" and "Quentin Durward." 
Sir Walter Scott's lovely stories. We girls were ex- 

15 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

pected to bring some work to occupy our fingers 
while listening to the readings, with the comments 
and explanations that illuminated obscure portions 
we might not comprehend. 

There was an old-fashioned "high boy" {hatit 
hois) in the library, in the capacious drawers of 
which were unmade garments for the missionary 
box. Woe unto the young lady who had no knit- 
ting, crocheting or hemstitching of her own to do ! 
She could sew on red flannel for the little Hotten- 
tots ! After hymn singing Sunday afternoons there 
was reading from some suitably saintly book. We 
had "Keith's Evidences of Prophecy" (I have not 
seen a copy of that much-read and laboriously ex- 
plained volume for more than sixty years). The 
tension of our minds produced by "prophecy" was 
mitigated once in a while by two goody-goody books, 
"Lamton Parsonage" and "Amy Herbert," both, 
no doubt, long out of print. 

There also were stately walks to be taken twice 
a day for recreation; walks down on the "Strand," 
or some back street that led away from college 
campus and flirtatious students. Our school hap- 
pened to be too near the college green, by the 
way. We marched in couples, a teacher to lead 
who had eyes both before and behind, and a teacher 
similarly equipped to follow. With all these pre- 

i6 



BOARDING SCHOOL IN THE FORTIES 

cautions we — some of us were pretty — were often 
convulsed beyond bounds when "we met by chance, 
the only way," on the very backest street, a proces- 
sion of college fellows on mischief bent, marching 
two and two, just like us. In bad weather we were 
shod with what were called "gums" and wrapped in 
coats long and shaggy and weighing a ton. Water- 
proofs were a later invention. Wet or dry, cold or 
warm, those exercises had to be taken to keep us 
in good physical condition. I must mention in this 
connection that no matter what ailed us, in stomach 
or back, head or foot, we were dosed with hot gin- 
ger tea. I do not remember ever seeing a doctor 
in the house, or knowing of one being summoned. 
The girls hated that ginger tea, so no doubt many 
an incipient headache was not reported. 

With the four spinsters (we irreverently called 
No. Ill Old Maids' Hall) who lived in the house, 
there were scraggly, baldheaded, spectacled teach- 
ers from outside — a monsieur who read Racine and 
Moliere with us and taught us j'aime, tu aime, 
which he could safely do, the snuffy old man; a 
fatherly sort of Turveydrop dancing master, who 
cracked our feet with his fiddle bow; a drawing 
master, who, because he sometimes led his class 
on sketching trips up Hillhouse Avenue, was 
immensely popular, and every one of us wanted 

17 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to take drawing lessons. We did some water colors, 
too; some of us had not one particle of artistic tal- 
ent. I was one of that sort, but I achieved a Balti- 
more oriole, which, years after, my admiring hus- 
band, who also had no artistic taste, had framed 
and "hung on the line" in our hall. Perhaps some 
Yankee may own it now, for during the war they 
took everything else we had, and surely a brilliant 
Baltimore oriole did not escape their rapacity! 

Solid English branches were taught by the dear 
spinsters. We did not skin cats and dissect them. 
There was no class in anatomy, but there was a 
botany class, and we dissected wild flowers, which 
Is a trifle more ladylike. Our drilling in chirogra- 
phy was something to marvel at in these days when 
the young people affect such complicated and in- 
volved handwriting that is not easily decipherable. 
And grammar! I now slip up in both grammar 
and rhetoric, but I have arrived at the failing age. 
We spent the greater part of a session parsing 
Pope's "Essay on Man," and at the closing of that 
book I think we knew the whole thing by heart. 
Discipline was, so to say, honorary. There were 
rules as to study and practice hours, and various 
other things. Saturday morning, after the "Collect 
of the day" and prayers, when we were presumed 
to be in a celestial frame of mind, each girl reported 

i8 



BOARDING SCHOOL IN THE FORTIES 

her infringement of rules — if she was delinquent, 
and she generally was. That system served 
to make us more truthful and conscientious than 
some of us might have been under a different 
training. 

It was expressly stipulated that no money be fur- 
nished the pupils. A teacher accompanied us to do 
necessary shopping and used her discretion in the 
selection. If one of us expressed the need of new 
shoes her entire stock was inspected, and if a pair 
could be repaired it was done and the purchase post- 
poned. Now, bear in mind, this was not a cheap, 
second rate school, but one of the best known and 
most fashionable. There were several young ladies 
from the South among the twenty or so boarders. 
The Northern girls were from the prominent New 
York families — Shermans, Kirbys, Phalens, Pum- 
pellys and Thorns. This was before the fashion- 
ables of to-day came to the fore. 

Speaking of reporting our delinquencies, we knew 
quite well that it was against the custom, at least, 
to bring reading matter into the school. There was 
a grand, large library of standard works of merit 
at our free disposal. In some way "Jane Eyre" 
(just published) was smuggled in and we were 
secretly reading it by turns. How the spinsters 
found it out we never knew, but they always found 

19 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

out everything, so we were scarcely surprised one 
Saturday morning to receive a lecture on the per- 
nicious character of the book "Jane Eyre," so un- 
like (and alas! so much more interesting than) Amy 
Herbert, with her missionary basket, her coals and 
her flannel petticoats. We were questioned, not by 
wholesale, but individually, if we had the book? 
If we had read the book? The first two or three in 
the row could reply in the negative, but as interro- 
gations ran down the line toward the guilty ones 
they were all greatly relieved when one brave girl 
replied, "Yes, ma'am, I am almost through, please 
let me finish it," Then "Jane" vanished from our 
possession. 

When the Church Sewing Society met at our 
house, certain girls who were sufficiently advanced in 
music to afford entertainment to the guests were 
summoned to the parlor to play and sing, and inci- 
dentally have a lemonade and a jumble. I was the 
star performer (had I not been a pupil of Cripps, 
Dr. Clapp's organist, since I was able to reach the 
pedal with my foot?). My overture of "La Dame 
Blanche" was quite a masterpiece, but my "Battle 
of Prague" was simply stunning. The "advance," 
the "rattle of musketry," the "beating of drums" 
(did you ever see the music score?) I could render 
with such, force that the dear, busy ladies almost 

20 



BOARDING SCHOOL IN THE FORTIES 

jumped from their seats. There were two Kentucky 
girls with fine voices also invited to entertain the 
guests. Alas! our fun came to an end. On one 
occasion when I ended the "Battle of Prague" with 
a terrific bang, there was an awful moment of si- 
lence, when one of the ladies sneezed with such 
unexpected force that her false teeth careered clear 
across the room! Not one of the guests saw it, or 
was aware that she quietly walked over and replaced 
them, but we naughty girls were so brimful of fun 
that we exploded with laughter. Nothing was said 
to us of the unfortunate contretemps, but the musi- 
cal programmes were discontinued. 

College boys helped to make things lively for us, 
though we did not have bowing acquaintance with 
one of them. Valentines poured in to us; under 
doors and over fences they rained. The dear 
spinsters laughed over them with us. Thanksgiving 
morning, when the front door was opened for the 
first time, and we were assembled in the hall ready 
to march to 1 1 o'clock church service, a gaunt, 
skinny, starved-to-death turkey was found suspended 
to the door knob, conspicuously tied by a broad red 
ribbon, with a Thanksgiving greeting painted on, 
so "one who ran could read." No doubt a good 
many had read and run, for there had been hours 
allowed them. The dear spinsters were so mortified 
3 21 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

and shocked that we girls had not the courage to 
laugh. 

By reason of my distance from home, reached by 
a long voyage on a sailing ship — the first steamer 
service between New York and New Orleans was in 
the autumn of 1848, and the Crescent City was the 
pioneer steamer — I spent the vacations under 
the benign influence of the teachers, always the only 
girl left, but busy and happy, enjoying all the priv- 
ileges of a parlor boarder. I still have a book full 
of written directions for knitting and crocheting, 
and making all sorts of old-timey needle books and 
pincushions, the initial directions dated 1846, largely 
the collection and record of more than one long 
summer vacation at that New England school. 
What girl of to-day would submit to such training 
and routine? What boarding school, seminary or 
college is to-day conducted on such lines? Not one 
that you or I know. The changes in everything, in 
every walk of life, from the simple in my day and 
generation to the complicated of the present, sets 
me to moralizing. Like all old people who are not 
able to take an active interest in the present, I live 
in the past, where the disappointments and heart- 
aches, for surely we must have had our share, are 
forgotten. We old people live in the atmosphere 
of a day dead — and gone — and glorified! 



nr 



IV 

PICAYUNE DAYS 

HE first time I ever saw a penny was at 
■ school in Yankeeland in 1847. It was 

given me to pay the man for bringing me 
a letter from the postoffice — 10 cents postage, i 
cent delivery, in those days. People had to get their 
mail at the office. There was no free delivery. 
Certain neighborhoods of spinsters, however — the 
college town was full of such — secured the services 
of a lame, halt or blind man to bring their letters 
from the office to their door once a day for the 
stipend of a penny each. 

There was no coin in circulation of less value than 
a picayune where was my home. A picayune, which 
represented so little value that a miser was called 
picayunish, at the same time represented such' a big 
value that we children felt rich when we had one 
tied In the corner of our handkerchief. At the cor- 
ner of Chartres and Canal Streets was a tiny soda 
fountain, where one could get a glass of soda for a 
picayune — or mead. We children liked mead. I 

23 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

never see it now, but, as I recall, it was a thick, 
honey, creamy drink. We must have preferred it 
because it seemed so much more for a picayune than 
the frothy, effervescent, palish soda water. It was 
a great lark to go with Pa and take my glass of 
mead, while he ordered ginger syrup (of all things!) 
with his soda. The changing years bring gold 




Market Doorway. 

mines, greenbacks, tariffs, labor exactions and nou- 
veaux riches, and a penny now buys about what a 
picayune did in my day. One pays a penny for 
ever so big a newspaper to-day. A picayune was 
the price of a small sheet in my time. 

Many of us must remember the colored mar- 
24 



PICAYUNE DAYS 

chandes who walked the street with trays, deftly 
balanced on their heads, arms akimbo, calling out 
their dainties, which were in picayune piles on the 
trays — six small celesto figs, or five large blue ones, 
nestling on fig leaves; lovely popcorn tic tac balls 
made with that luscious "open kettle" sugar, that 
dear, fragrant brown sugar no one sees now. Pra- 
lines with the same sugar; why, we used it in our 
coffee. A few years ago, visiting dear Mrs. Ida 
Richardson, I reveled in our breakfast coffee. "I 
hope you preserve your taste for brown sugar cof- 
fee?" she said. I fairly jumped at the treat. 

But a marchande is passing up the street, and if I 
am a little girl, I beg a picayune for a praline; if I 
am an old lady, I invest a picayune in a leaf with six 
jigiies celestes. Mme. Chose — I don't give any more 
definite name, for it is a sub rosa venture on her 
part — had a soiree last night. Madame buys her 
chapeaux of Olympe, and her toilettes from Pluche 
or Ferret, and if her home is way down, even be- 
low Esplanade Street, where many Creoles live, she 
is thrifty and frugal. So this morning a chocolate- 
colored marchande, who usually vends picayune bou- 
quets of violets from madame's parterre, has her 
tray filled with picayune stacks of broken nougat 
pyramid and candied orange and macaroons very 
daintily arranged on bits of tissue paper. I vividly 

25 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

recall encountering way down Royal Street, where 
no one was loitering to see me, this chocolate mar- 
chande, and recognizing the delicacies of a ball the 
previous night. I was on my way to call on Mrs. 
Garnet Duncan, the dear, delightful woman who 
was such a gourmandc, and I knew how delicious 
were those sweets; no one could excel a Creole 
madame in this confection. So I invested a few 
picayunes in some of the most attractive, carrying 
off to my sweet friend what I conveniently could. 
How she did enjoy them ! And how she complained 
I had not brought more ! The mesdames of that 
date are gone; gone also, no doubt, are the mar- 
chandes they sent forth. It was a very picayunish 
sort of business, but labor did not count, for one 
was not paying $20 a month for the reluctant ser- 
vices of a chocolate lady. 

Then again, in the early morning, when one, en 
papilottes, came down to breakfast, listless and "out 
of sorts," the chant of the cream cheese woman 
would be heard. A rush to the door with a saucer 
for a cheese, a tiny, heart-shaped cheese, a dash of 
cream poured from a claret bottle over it — all this 
for a picayune! How nice and refreshing it was. 
What a glorious addition to the breakfast that 
promised to pall on one's appetite. 

Picayune was the standard coin at the market. I 
26 



PICAYUNE DAYS 

wonder what is now? Soup bone was un escalin 
(two picayunes), but one paid for the soup vege- 
tables, a bit of cabbage, a leek, a sprig of parsley, a 
tiny carrot, a still tinier turnip, all tied in a slender 
package. A cornet of fresh gumbo file, a bunch of 
horse-radish roots, a little sage, parsley, herbs of 
every sort in packages and piles, a string of dried 
grasshoppers for the mocking bird, "«;z picayun," 
the Indian or black woman squatting on the ban- 
quette at the old French Market would tell you. 

A picayune was the smallest coin the richly ap- 
pareled madame or the poor market negro could 
put in the collection box as she paused on her way 
at the Cathedral to tell her beads. There was no 
occasion for the priest to rebuke his flock for nig- 
gardliness. They may have been picayunish, but 
not to the extent of the congregation of one of the 
largest Catholic churches I wot of to-day, where the 
fathers were so tired counting pennies that it was 
announced from the pulpit: "No more pennies must 
be put in the box. We spend hours every week 
counting and stacking pennies, and it is a shocking 
waste of time. If you are so destitute that you can't 
afford at least a nickel to your church, come to the 
vestry, after mass, and we will look into your needs 
and give you the relief the church always extends 
to her poor." 

27 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

The shabby old negro, with her heavy market 
basket, returning home, no doubt needing the prayers 
of her patron saint or some other churchly office, 
filched the picayune from the carefully counted mar- 
ket money. I know, no matter how carefully my 
mother doled the market fund to John, he always 
contrived to secure a picayune out of it, and for no 
saint, either, but for old Coffee-stand Palmyre. 

Do not we old ladies remember the picayaine 
dolls of our childhood? The wooden jointed dolls, 
the funny little things we had to play with, every 
feature, even hair and yellow earrings, painted on 
little, smooth bullet heads. They could be made to 
sit down and to crook their arms, but no ingenuity 
could make them stand a-loney. How we loved 
those little wooden dolls ! We do not see a pauper 
child, not even a poor little blackie, with a picayune 
doll nowadays. I really believe we — I am talking 
of old ladies now — were happier, and had more fun 
with our picayune family than the little girls of the 
present day have with their $io dolls, with glass 
eyes that are sure to fall out and long curls that 
are sure to tangle. We had no fears about the eyes 
and hair of our picayunes. 

The picayune, whose memory I invoke, was a 
Spanish coin, generally worn pretty thin and often 
having a small hole in it. I remember my ambition 

28 



PICAYUNE DAYS 

was to accumulate enough picayunes to string on a 
thread for an ornament. It is unnecessary to say 
that in those thrifty days my ambition was not grati- 
fied. It is more than fifty years since I have seen 
one of those old 6^ cent picayunes. I have a stiff, 
wooden corset board that I sometimes take out to 
show to my granddaughter when I find her "stoop- 
ing," that she may see the instrument that made 
grandma so straight. I would like to have a pica- 
yune to add to my very limited collection of relics. 
They flourished at the same era and have together 
vanished from our homes and shops. 

We all must have known some "picayune 
people." There was a family living near us who 
owned and occupied a large, fine home on St. Joseph 
Street, while we and the Grimshaws and Beins lived 
in rented houses near by. They had, besides, a sum- 
mer home "over the lake" (and none of us had!). 
Often, on Mondays, a fish, or a quart of shrimp, or 
something else in the "over the lake" line, was sent 
to one of us, for sale. We used to laugh over the 
littleness of the thing. A quart of shrimp for a 
picayune was cheap and tempting, but none of us 
cared to buy of our rich neighbor. The climax 
came when an umbrella went the rounds for inspec- 
tion. It was for raffle! Now, umbrellas, like pocket 
handkerchiefs, are always useful and never go out 

29 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of fashion. With one accord, we decHned chances 
in the umbrella. 

I feel I am, for the fun of the thing, dragging 
forth a few skeletons from closets, but I do not 
ticket them, so no harm is done. In fact, if I ever 
knew, I have long since forgotten the name to tack 
onto the umbrella skeleton. And the fashionable 
madame who sent out on the streets what a lady 
we knew called the "perquisites" of her soiree sup- 
per has left too many well-known descendants. I 
would scorn to ticket the skeleton of that frugal 
and thrifty madame. There are no more umbrellas 
for a picayunish skeleton to raffle, no more such 
delicious sweets for the madame to stack into pica- 
yune piles, and, alack-a-day! no more picayunes, 
either. 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

HOUSEKEEPING is vastly simplified since 
the days when my mother washed her 
teacups and spoons every morning. I 
love the old way; however, I do not practise it. If 
my grandchildren were to see the little wooden piggin 
brought me on a tray after breakfast, and see me 
wash the silver and glass they would think grandma 
has surely lost her mind. That purely domestic 
housewifely habit lasted long after my mother had 
passed away. It still is the vogue in many a New 
England household, but no doubt is among the lost 
virtues South. When I was a young lady and occa- 
sionally (oh, happy times!) spent a few days with 
the Slocombs, I always saw Mrs. Slocomb and her 
aged mother, dear old Mrs. Cox, who tremblingly 
loved to help, pass the tea things through their own 
delicate hands every morning. So it was at Mrs. 
Leonard Matthews', and so it was in scores of 
wealthy homes. 

Though we had ever so many servants, our fam- 

31 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

ily being a large one, my semi-invalid mother, who 
rarely left her home and never made visits, did a 
thousand little household duties that are now, even 
in families where only one or two servants are kept, 
entirely ignored by the ladies of the house. After 
a dinner party or an evening entertainment, and 
my father was hospitably inclined — much beyond his 
means — my mother passed all the silver, glass and 
china through her own delicate fingers, and we did 
not, as I recall after all this lapse of years, have 
anything of superlative value. It was not a matter 
of thrift or economy on her part, but a matter of 
course; everybody did the same. 

After a visit to a New England family several 
years ago I was telling a Creole friend of the lovely 
old India china that had been in daily use over three 
generations. The reply was: "Oh, but they did not 
have a Christophe." No doubt they had had several 
Christophes, but they never had a chance to wash 
those valuable cups. In the days of long ago house- 
wives did not have negligees with floating ribbons 
and smart laces. They had calico gowns that a 
splash of water could not ruin. 

Household furniture — I go back full seventy 
years — was simple and easily cared for. Carpets 
were generally what was known as "three-ply." I 
don't see them now, but in places, on humble 

32 







''''^^'^S' £i V^ ^^M^^nkik*^ Gl'£, 



■^^JSL^^ 



'^M.W^.^ 






-r i .' 



!U>1^".,_ •' ^&^ 



.:•-■" S 







A New Orleans Yard and Cistern. 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

floors, I see Imitation Brussels or some other coun- 
terfeit. The first carpet I ever saw woven in one 
piece, like all the rugs so plentiful now (and that 
was at a much later date) was on the parlor floor of 
the Goodman house, on Toulouse Street, the home 
so full of bright young girls I so loved to visit. 
There was no concern to take away carpets to be 
cleaned and stored in the summer. Carpets were 
taken to some vacant lot and well beaten. The 
neutral green on Canal Street, green and weedy it 
was, too, was a grand place to shake carpets; no 
offense given if one carried them beyond Claiborne 
Street where were no pretentious houses. Then 
those carpets were thickly strewn with tobacco 
leaves, rolled up and stored In the garret, if you 
had one. Every house did not boast of that con- 
venience. 

Curtains were not satin damask. At the Mint 
when Joe Kennedy was superintendent, and his 
family were fashionable people, their parlor cur- 
tains were some red cotton stuff, probably what 
is known as turkey red; there was a white and 
red-figured border; they were looped over 
gilt rods meant to look like spears and muskets, 
in deference, I suppose, to the military side of 
that government building, for there were senti- 
nels and guards stationed around about that 

35 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

gave the whole concern a most imposing and 
military air. 

I remember at the Breedloves' home there were 
net curtains (probably mosquito net), with a red 
border. They were thought rather novel and 
stylish. There were no madras, no Irish point, no 
Nottingham curtains even, so one did not have a 
large variety to choose from. 

People had candelabras, and some elaborate af- 
fairs — they called them girandoles — to hold can- 
dles; they had heavy crystal drops that tinkled and 
scintillated and were prismatic and on the whole 
were rather fine. The candles in those gorgeous 
stands and an oil lamp on the inevitable center-table 
were supposed to furnish abundance of light for 
any occasion. When my sister dressed for a func- 
tion she had two candles to dress by (so did I ten 
years later!), and two dusky maids to follow her all 
about, and hold them at proper points so the process 
of the toilet could be satisfactorily accomplished. 
Two candles without shades — nobody had heard of 
shades — were sufficient for an ordinary tea table. 
I was a grown girl, fresh from school, when I 
saw the first gaslight in a private house, at 
Mrs. Slocomb's, on St. Charles Street. People 
sewed, embroidered, read and wrote and played 
chess evenings by candlelight, and except a few 

36 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

near-sighted people and the aged no one used 
glasses. There was not an oculist (a specialist, I 
mean) in the whole city. 

Every woman had to sew. There were well- 
trained seamstresses in every house; no "ready- 
mades," no machines. Imagine the fine hand-sew- 
ing on shirt bosoms, collars and cuffs. I can hear 
my mother's voice now, "Be careful in the stitching 
of that bosom; take up two and skip four," which I 
early learned meant the threads of the linen. What 
a time there was when the boys grew to tailor-cut 
pantaloons! Cut by a tailor, sewed at home, what 
a to-do there was when Charley had his first tail- 
coat; he could not sit on the tails, they were too 
short, so he made an uproar. 

I recall also how I cried when sister's old red 
and black "shot silk" dress was made over for me, 
and I thought I was going to be so fine (I was nine 
years old then and was beginning to "take notice"). 
The goods fell short, and I had to have a black, low 
neck, short-sleeve waist. In vain I was told it 
was velvet and ever so stylish and becoming. I 
knew better. However, that abbreviated dress and 
those abbreviated tails did duty at the dancing 
school. 

But we have wandered from house furnishings to 
children's clothes. We will go upstairs now and 
4 37 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

take a look at the ponderous four-poster bed, with 
its awful tester top, that covered It like a flat roof. 
That tester was ornamented with a wall paper stuff, 
a wreath of impossible red and yellow roses, big as 
saucers, stamped on it, and four strands of same 
roses reaching to the four corners of the monstros- 
ity. The Idea of lying, with a raging fever or a 
splitting headache, under such a canopy! How- 
ever, there were "swells" (there always are 
"swells") who had testers covered with silk. 

I hear a rumor that furniture covered with horse- 
hair cloth is about to come to the fore again. Every- 
body In my early day had black haircloth furniture; 
maybe that was one reason red curtains were pre- 
ferred, for furniture covered with black haircloth 
was fearfully funereal. However, as no moth de- 
voured it, dust did not rest on its slick, shiny 
surface, and it lasted forever, It had Its advantages. 
Every household possessed a haircloth sofa, with a 
couple of hard, round pillows of the same, the one 
too slippery to nap on and the others regular break- 
necks. 

Butler's pantry! My stars! Who ever heard 
of a butler's pantry, and sinks, and running water, 
and faucets inside houses? The only running water 
was a hydrant in the yard; the only sink was the 
gutter in the yard; the sewer was the gutter In the 

38 







Door ■" cfie FVe.nch_M^^-- 



DooR IN THE French Market 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

street, so why a butler's pantry? To be sure there 
was a cistern for rainwater, and jars like those Ali 
Baba's forty thieves hid themselves in. Those 
earthen jars were replenished from the hydrant, and 
the muddy river water "settled" by the aid of al- 
mond hulls or alum. 

Of course, every house had a storeroom, called 
pantry, to hold supplies. It was lined with shelves, 
but the only light and air was afforded by a half- 
moon aperture cut into a heavy batten door. We 
had wire safes on the back porch and a zinc-lined 
box for the ice — nothing else — wrapped in a gray 
blanket, gray, I presume, on the same principle we 
children preferred pink cocoanut cakes — they kept 
clean longer than the white! Ice was in general 
use but very expensive. It was brought by ship 
from the North, in hogsheads. 

For the kitchen there were open fireplaces with a 
pot hanging from a crane, skillets and spiders. We 
don't even hear the names of those utensils now. 
By and by an enterprising housewife ventured on a 
cook stove. I have a letter written by one such, 
dated in New Orleans in 1840, in which she des- 
cants on the wonders achieved by her stove. "Why, 
Susan, we baked three large cakes in it at one time." 
In the old way it required a spider for each cake. 
There were no plated knives, but steel, and they 
39 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

had to be daily scoured with "plenty brickdust on 
your knife board," but those knives cut like razors. 
There was no bric-a-brac, few pictures, nothing or- 
namental in the parlors. One house I remember 
well had a Bunker Hill monument, made, I guess, 
of stucco, and stuck all over with gay seashells; it 
was perhaps 25 or 30 inches high; it made a most 
commanding appearance on the center-table. When 
my sister made a tiresomely long call at that house 
it amused me to try to count the shells. 

An old gentleman, called "Old Jimmie Dick" 
when I remember him, a rich cotton broker (the 
firm was Dick & Hill), made a voyage to Europe, 
and brought home some Apollos, and Cupids, and 
Mercuries, statues in the "altogether," for his par- 
lor. Jimmie Dick was a bachelor, and lived on Canal 
Street, near Carondelet or Baronne, and had a 
charming spinster niece keeping house for him, who 
was so shocked when she saw the figures mounted 
on pedestals (they were glaring white marble and 
only a trifle under hfe size) that she immediately 
made slips of brown holland and enveloped them, 
leaving only the heads exposed! I never went to 
that house but the one time when we surprised her 
in the act of robing her visitors! 

I speak of houses that I visited with my grown 
sister. It was not comme il faut for a young 

40 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

lady to be seen too frequently on the street or to 
make calls alone. Mother was an invalid and made 
no visits. Father accompanied sister on ceremonious 
occasions. I was pressed into service when no one 
else was available. I feel I am going way back 
beyond the recollection of my readers, but some 
of the grandmothers, too old, mayhap, to do their 
own reading, can recall just such a life, a life that 
will never be lived again. 



VI 

/ 

A FASHIONABLE FUNCTION IN 1 842 

IT is hard to realize while we are surrounded by 
so many housekeeping conveniences what an 
amount of time, energy, and, above all, knowl- 
edge of the craft were necessary to the giving of a 
reception seventy years ago, when every preparation 
had to be made in the house and under the watchful 
supervision of the chatelaine. 

There were no chefs to be hired, nor caterers to 
be summoned, not even a postman to deliver invita- 
tions. All that was done "by hand." A darky was 
sent forth with a basket of nicely "tied up with 
white ribbons" notes of invitation, and he went from 
house to house, sending the basket to the occupant, 
where she not only subtracted her special note, but 
had the privilege of seeing "who else was Invited." 
And if the darky was bewildered as to his next 
stopping-place she could enlighten him. This com- 
plicated mode of delivering Invitations prevailed 
into the fifties. 

The preparations for the supper involved so much 

42 



A FASHIONABLE FUNCTION IN 1842 

labor that many hosts offered only eau sucre or 
gumbo. There was no cut nor granulated nor pul- 
verized sugar, to be turned from the grocer's bag 
onto the scales. All sugar except the crude brown, 
direct from plantations, was in cone-shaped loaves 
as hard as a stone and weighing several pounds each. 
These well-wrapped loaves were kept hung (like 
hams in a smokehouse) from the closet ceiling. 
They had to be cut into chips by aid of carving knife 
and hammer, then pounded and rolled until re- 
duced to powder, before that necessary ingredient 
was ready for use. 

There were no fruit extracts, no essences for sea- 
soning, no baking powder to make a half-beaten 
cake rise, no ground spices, no seedless raisins, no 
washed ( ?) currants, no isinglass or gelatine, and to 
wind up this imperfect list, no egg-beater! Still the 
thrifty housewife made and served cakes fit for the 
gods, with only Miss Leslie's cook book to refer to, 
and that was published in the twenties. Ice cream 
was seasoned by boiling a whole vanilla bean in the 
milk; it was frozen in a huge cylinder without any 
inside fixtures to stir the mixture; it was whirled in 
the ice tub by hand — and a stout one at that — and 
required at least one hour, constant labor, to freeze 
the cream. 

For jelly, calves' feet were secured days in 
43 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

advance, and Madame superintended the making 
of gelatine. Pink jelly was colored with a drop or 
two of cochineal, yellow, doctored with lemon, and 
a beautiful pale green, colored with the strained 
juice of scalded spinach. These varieties were 
served in various attractive shapes; and all, even the 
green, were delicious. These preparations were also 
complicated by the necessity of procuring all sup- 
plies from the early morning market often a mile 
or more away, and which, besides, closed at lo 
o'clock. No stepping to the corner grocery for eggs 
or butter in an unforeseen emergency, and to the 
credit of the community the "borrowing habit" was 
entirely unknown. 

I remember a Mrs. Swiler, chiefly because when 
I went to see her, with an older sister, she "passed 
around" bananas. Cuban fruits were scarce in 
those days, and highly prized. 

There were no awnings to be used in bad weather; 
no camp chairs for the invited guests if all came, and 
all wanted to sit down at the same time; no water- 
proofs for them to come in; no rubbers to protect 
feet from rain-soaked sidewalks; no street cars; 
no public conveyances that people ever hired for 
such occasions; no private carriages to bump 
you over rough cobblestones. So, there you 
are! 

44 




Courtyard on Carondelet Street 



A FASHIONABLE FUNCTION IN 1842 

Arrived after all these tiresome preparations and 
your own discomfort at my father's house, on Canal 
Street, to a reception given almost seventy years 
ago, in honor of Commodore Moore of the Texas 
navy, who brought to my father letters of intro- 
duction from President Mirabeau B. Lamar, of the 
Republic of Texas, and Gen. Sam Houston of the 
Texas army! 

I have reason to think at this late date, not hear- 
ing to the contrary at the time, that the commo- 
dore's visit was quite amicable and friendly. If he 
was escorted by Texas warships! or even arrived 
in his own flagship ! I never knew. With his im- 
posing uniform and a huge gilt star on his breast, 
a sword at his side, and a rather fierce mustache 
(mustaches were little worn then), he looked as if 
he were capable of doing mighty deeds of daring, 
for the enterprising new republic on our border. He 
was accompanied by his aide, a callow youth, also 
in resplendent attire, a sword so long and unwieldy 
he was continually tripping, and therefore too em- 
barrassingly incommoded to circulate among the 
ladies. I met that "aide," a real fighter in Texas 
during the late war. He proudly wore a lone star 
under the lapel of his coat of Confederate gray, 
and we had a merry laugh over his naval debut. 
He was Lieut. Fairfax Grey. His sister was the 

47 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

wife of Temple Doswell, and many of her descend- 
ants are identified with New Orleans to-day. 

Mr, Clay, grand, serene, homely and affable; also 
Gen. Gaines in his inevitable uniform. The two 
military and naval officers commanded my admira- 
tion, as I sat quietly and unobtrusively in a corner 
in a way "becoming to a child of nine" — "a chiel 
amang ye, takin' notes" — but no one took note of 
the chiel. We had also a jolly itinerant Irish 
preacher, I think of the Methodist persuasion, whom 
my father had met at country camp meetings. His 
call was to travel, and incidentally preach where the 
harvest was ripe. I remember how, laughingly, he 
remarked to my father, anent the commodore's visit, 
that the chief inhabitants of Western Texas were 
mesquite grass and buffaloes. He was father of 
John L. Moffitt of Confederate fame, and a very at- 
tractive daughter became the wife of President 
Lamar. 

There was dance music — a piano only — but the 
room was too crowded for more than one attempt 
at a quadrille. The notabilities, army, navy and 
State, did not indulge in such frivolity. Life was 
too serious with them. 

These functions generally began at 8 and termi- 
nated before the proverbial small hours. So by 
midnight the last petticoat had fluttered away; and 

48 



A FASHIONABLE FUNCTION IN 1842 

then there followed the clearing up, and, as the old 
lady said, the "reinstating of affairs," which kept 
the hostess and her sleepy helpers busy long after 
the rest of the family had fluttered away also — to 
the land of Nod. 



VII 

NEW year's of old 

"When I was young, time had for me the lazy ox's 

pace, 
But now it's like the blooded horse that means to 

win the race." 

HERE it is New Year's Day again. It seems 
only yesterday when we had such a dull, 
stupid New Year's Day. Everybody who 
was anybody was out of town, at country mansions 
to flourish with the rich, or to old homesteads to 
see their folks. Nobody walking the streets, no 
shops were open. Those of us who had no rich 
friends with country mansions, or no old homesteads 
to welcome us, remained gloomily at home, with 
shades down, servants off for the day, not even a 
basket for cards tied to the doorknob. 

Nobody calls now at New Year's. It is out of 
fashion, or, rather, the fashion has descended from 
parlor to kitchen. When Bridget and Mary don 
their finery and repair to Bridget's cousin's to "re- 
ceive," and Sambo puts on a high shirt collar and 
a stovepipe hat, and sallies out on his round of calls, 

50 



NEW YEAR'S OF OLD 

we have a pick-up dinner, and grandma tries to 
enliven the family with reminiscences of the New 
Year's Days of seventy years ago, when her mother 
and sister "received" in state, and father and 
brother donned their "stovepipes" and proceeded to 
fill the society role for the year. 

In the forties and for years thereafter, New Year's 
Day was the visiting day for the men, and receiving 
day for the ladies. All the fathers and grandfa- 
thers, in their newest rig, stick in hand, trotted or 
hobbled around, making the only calls they made 
from year to year. Before noon, ladies were in their 
parlors, prinked up, pomatumed up, powdered up, 
to "receive." Calling began as early as ii, for it 
was a short winter day, and much to be accom- 
plished. A small stand in the hall held a card re- 
ceiver, into which a few cards left from last year's 
stock were placed, so the first caller might not be 
embarrassed with the fact that he was the first. No 
one cared to be the very first then, any more than 
now. 

A table of generous dimensions occupied a 
conspicuous position in the parlor (we never said 
"drawing room"), with silver tray, an immense and 
elaborately decorated cake and a grand bowl of 
foaming eggnog. That was chiefly designed for 
the beaux. On the dining room sideboard (we did 

51 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD HKW ORLEANS 

not say "buffet," either) a brandy straight or whisky 
straight was to be found for those walking-stick ones 
whose bones were stiff and whose digestion could 
not brook the fifty different concoctions of eggnog 
they were liable to find in the fifty different houses. 
Those varied refreshments, which every caller was 
expected to at least taste, often worked havoc on 
the young and spry, to say nothing of the halt and 

lame. 

There were no flower decorations. It was the 
dead season for plants, and Boston greenhouses 
were not shipping carloads of roses and carnations 
to New Orleans in the '40s. Rooms were not dark- 
ened, either, to be illuminated with gas or electricity, 
but windows were thrown wide open to the blessed 
light of a New Year's Day. Little cornets of bon- 
bons and drawees were carelessly scattered about. 
Those cornucopias, very slim and pointed, con- 
taining about a spoonful of French confections, 
were made of stiff, shiny paper, gaudily colored min- 
iatures of Impossible French damsels ornamenting 
them. I have not seen one of those pretty trifles 
for sixty years. It was quite the style for a swain 
to send his Dulclnea a cornet in the early morning. 
If the Dulclnea did not happen to receive as many 
as she wanted, she could buy a few more. One liked 
to be a Belle! 

52 



NEW YEAR'S OF OLD 

Living in Canal Street, a little girl was uncon- 
sciously taking notes that blossom now in a chronicle 
of the doings and sayings of those New Year's 
Days of the early '40s. She enjoyed looking through 
the open window, onto the broad, unshaded street, 
watching an endless procession of callers. There 
were rows of fashionable residences in Canal Street 
to be visited, and the darting in and out of open 
doors, as though on earnest business bent, was a 
sight. The men of that day wore skin-tight panta- 
loons (we did not call them trousers), often made 
of light-colored materials. I clearly remember a 
pea green pair that my brother wore, flickering like 
a chameleon in and out of open street doors. Those 
tight-fitting pantaloons were drawn taut over the 
shoe, a strong leather strap extending under the foot 
buckled the garment down good and tight, giving 
the wearer as mincing a gait as the girl in the pres- 
ent-day hobble skirt. The narrow clawhammer 
coat with tails that hung almost to the knees behind 
and were scarcely visible in front, had to have the 
corner of a white handkerchief flutter from the tail 
pocket. 

Military men like Gen. E. P. Gaines (he was 

in his zenith at that date) and all such who 

could sport a military record wore stiff stocks about 

their long necks. Those stocks made the necks ap- 

5 53 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

pear abnormally long. They were made of buck- 
ram (or sheet iron?), so broad that three straps 
were required to buckle them at the back, covered 
with black satin, tiny satin bows in front which were 
utterly superfluous, for they tied nothing and were 
not large enough to be ornamental. The stocks 
must have been very trying to the wearers, for they 
could not turn their heads when they were buckled 
up, and, like the little boy with the broad collar, 
could not spit over them. However, they did im- 
part a military air of rigidity and stiffness, as though 
on dress parade all the time. 

I remember Major Waters had a bald spot 
on the top of his head and two long strands of 
sandy hair on each side which he carefully gathered 
up over the bald spot and secured in place by the 
aid of a side comb ! I used to wish the comb would 
fall out, to see what the major would do, for I was 
convinced he could not bend his head over that stiff, 
formidable stock. The major won his title at the 
battle of River Rasin (if you know where that is, 
I don't). My father was in the same battle, but 
being only seventeen he did not win a title. I don't 
suppose that River Rasin engagement amounted to 
much anyway, for dear pa did not wear a stock, nor 
a military bearing, either. Gen. Persifor Smith was 
another stock man who called always at New Year's 

54 



NEW YEAR'S OF OLD 

and at no other time. And Major Messiah! Dear 
me, how many of us remember him in the flesh, or 
can forget the cockaded, epauletted portrait he left 
behind when he fought his last life's battle? 

All the men wore tall silk hats that shone like pat- 
ent leather. Those hats have not been banished 
so long ago that all of us have forgotten their mon- 
strosity, still to be seen now and then in old daguer- 
reotypes or cartes de visite. They flocked in pairs 
to do their visiting. It would be a Mardi Gras 
nowadays to see one of those old-time processions. 
Men of business, men of prominence, no longer so- 
ciety men, fulfilled their social duty once each year, 
stepped into the dining room at a nod from mother, 
who was as rarely in the parlor to "receive," as the 
men who, at the sideboard, with a flourish of the 
hand and a cordial toast to the New Year, took a 
brandy straight. They are long gone. Their sons, 
the beaux of that day, quietly graduated from the 
eggnog to the sideboard, become even older men 
than their fathers, are gone, too. 

I remember a very original, entertaining beau of 
those days saying eggnog was good enough for him, 
and when he felt he was arriving at the brandy- 
straight age he meant to kill himself. How would 
he know when the time for hari-kari came? "When 
my nose gets spongy." He had a very pronounced 

ss 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Hebrew nose, by the way. Not so many years ago 
I heard of him hobbling on crutches. Not only his 
nose, but his legs were spongy, but he gave no indi- 
cation that life was not as dear to him as in his salad 
days. 

The younger element, beaux of my grown-up sis- 
ter, rambled in all day long, hat in hand, with "A 
happy New Year," a quaff of eggnog, "No cake, 
thanks," and away like a flash, to go into house 
after house, do and say the same things, till night 
would find they had finished their list of calls and 
eggnog had about finished them. So the great day 
of the year wore on. 

After the house doors were closed at the flirt of 
the last clawhammer coat tail, cards were counted 
and comments made as to who had called and who 
had failed to put in appearance, the wreck of glasses, 
cake and tray removed, and it was as tired a set of 
ladies to go to bed as of men to be put into bed. 

As the beautiful custom of hospitality spread from 
the centers of fashion to the outskirts of society the 
demi mondaines, then the small tradesman, then the 
negroes became infected with the fashion of "receiv- 
ing" at New Year's, in their various shady abodes. 
The bon tons gradually relinquished the hospitable 
and friendly custom of years. Ladies suspended 
tiny card receivers on the doorknob, and retired be- 

56 



NEW YEAR'S OF OLD 

hind closed blinds. Those of the old friends of tot- 
tering steps and walking sticks, always the last to 
relinquish a loved habit, wearily dropped cards into 
the little basket and passed on to the next closed 
door. Now the anniversary, instead of being one 
of pleasant greetings, is as stupid and dull as any 
day in the calendar, unless, as I have said, one has 
a friend with a "cottage by the sea" or a chateau 
on the hilltop and is also endowed with the spirit 
of hospitality to ask one to spend the week-end and 
take an eggnog or a brandy straight. 



VIII 

NEW ORLEANS SHOPS AND SHOPPING IN THE 
FORTIES 

THE shopping region of New Orleans was 
confined to Chartres and Royal Streets 
seventy years ago. It was late in the fif- 
ties when the first movement was made to more com- 
modious and less crowded locations on Canal Street, 
and Olympe, the fashionable modiste, was the ven- 
turesome pioneer. 

Woodlief's was the leading store on Chartres 
Street and Barriere's on Royal, where could be 
found all the French noiivcaiitcs of the day, beauti- 
ful bareges, Marcelines and chine silks, organdies 
stamped in gorgeous designs, to be made up with 
wreathed and bouquet flounces, but, above and be- 
yond all for utility and beauty, were the imported 
French calicoes, fine texture, fast colors. It was be- 
fore the day of aniline and diamond dyes; blues 
were indigo, reds were cochineal pure and unadul- 
terated; so those lovely goods, printed in rich de- 
signs — often the graceful palm-leaf pattern — could 

58 



SHOPS AND SHOPPING IN THE FORTIES 

be "made over," turned upside down and hindpart 
before, indefinitely, for they never wore out or lost 
color, and were cheap at fifty cents a yard. T^one 
but those in mourning wore black ; even the men wore 
blue or bottle green coats, gay flowered vests and 
tan-colored pantaloons. I call to mind one ultra- 
fashionable beau who delighted in a pair of sage 
green "pants." 

The ladies' toilets were still more gay; even the 
elderly ones wore bright colors. The first black 
silk dress worn on the street, and that was in '49, 
was proudly displayed by Miss Mathilde Eustis, 
who had relatives in France who kept her en rap- 
port with the latest Parisian style. Hers was a 
soft Marceline silk; even the name, much less the 
article, is as extinct as the barege and crepe lisse of 
those far away days. It was at Woodlief's or Bar- 
rieres these goods were displayed on shelves and 
counters. There were no show windows, no dressed 
and draped wax figures to tempt the passerby. 

Mme. Pluche's shop, on the corner of Royal and 
Conti, had one window where a few trifles were oc- 
casionally displayed on the sill or hung, carefully 
draped on the side, so as not to intercept the light. 
Madame was all French and dealt only in French 
importations. Mme. Frey was on Chartres Street. 
Her specialty (all had specialties; there was no shop 

59 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

room for a miscellaneous stock of goods) was man- 
t'lllas, visiles, cardinals and other confections to en- 
velop the graceful mesdames en fldnant. I call 
to mind a visile of thinnest muslin, heavily embroid- 
ered (no Hamburg or machine embroidery in those 
days), lined with blue silk, blue cords and tassels for 
a finish. It was worn by a belle of the forties, and 
Mme. Frey claimed to have imported it. The ma- 
dame was not French. She had a figure no French 
woman would have submitted to, a fog-horn voice 
and a well-defined mustache, but her taste was the 
best and her dictum in her specialty was final. 

The fashionable milliner was Olympe. Her spe- 
cialty was imported chapeaux. She did not — osten- 
sibly, at least — make or even trim chapeaux. 
Olympe's ways were persuasive beyond resistance. 
She met her customer at the door with "Ah, ma- 
dame" — she had brought from Paris the very bon- 
net for you ! No one had seen it ; it was yours ! And 
Mam'zelle Adele was told to bring Mme. X's cha- 
peau. It fit to a merveillef It was an inspiration! 
And so Mme. X had her special bonnet sent home 
in a fancy box by the hand of a dainty grisette. 
Olympe was the first of her class to make a specialty 
of delivering the goods. And Monsieur X, though 
he may have called her "Old Imp," paid the bill 
with all the extras of specialty and delivery included, 

60 



SHOPS AND SHOPPING IN THE FORTIES 

though not Itemized. Those were bonnets to shade 
the face — a light blue satin shirred lengthwise; 
crepe lisse, same color, shirred crosswise over it, 
forming Indistinct blocks; and a tout aller, of rasp- 
berry silk, shirred "every which way," are two that 
I recall. 

Madame a-shopping went followed by a servant to 
bring home the packages. Gloves, one button only, 
were light colored, pink, lavender, lemon, rarely 
white; and for ordinary wear bottle green gloves 
were considered very comme il faut. They harmo- 
nized with the green barege veil that every lady 
had for shopping. 

Our shopping trip would be incomplete If we 
failed to call on an old Scotch couple who had a lace 
store under Col. WInthrop's residence on Royal 
Street. The store had a door and a window, and 
the nice old parties who had such a prodigious 
Scotch brogue one would scarcely understand them, 
could, by a little skill, entertain three customers at 
one and the same time. If one extra shopper ap- 
peared, Mr. Syme disappeared, leaving the old lady 
to attend to business. She was almost blind from 
cataract, a canny old soul and not anyways blind to 
business advantages. I am pleased to add they 
retired after a few busy years quite well-to-do. 
There was Seibrlcht, on Royal Street, a furniture 

6i 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

dealer, and still further down Royal Seignoret, in 
the same lucrative business, for I do not recall they 
had any competitors. Memory does not go beyond 
the time when Hyde and Goodrich were not the jew- 
elers; and Loveille, on the corner of Customhouse 
and Royal, the grocer, for all foreign wines, cheeses, 
etc. Never do I see such Parmesan as we got from 
Loveille in my early days. 

William McKean had a bookshop on Camp Street, 
a few doors above Canal. Billy McKean, as the 
irreverent called him, was a picture of Pickwick, 
and a clever, kindly old man was he. There was a 
round table in the rear of his shop, where one found 
a comfortable chair and a few books to browse over. 
In my childhood I was always a welcome visitor to 
that round table, for I always "sat quiet and just 
read," as dear old Mr. McKean told me. As I 
turn the pages of my book of memories not only the 
names but the very faces of these shopkeepers of 
seventy years ago come to me, all smiles and win- 
ning ways, and way back I fly to my pantalette and 
pigtail days, so happy in these dreams that will never 
be reality to any place or people. 

There were no restaurants, no lunch counters, 
no tea rooms, and (bless their dear hearts, who 
started it!) no woman's exchange, no place in the 
whole city where a lady could drop in, after all this 

62 



SHOPS AND SHOPPING IN THE FORTIES 

round of shopping, take a comfortable seat and 
order even a sandwich, or any kind of refreshment. 
One could take an eclair at Vincent's, corner of 
Royal and Orleans, but eclairs have no satisfying 
quality. 

There was a large hotel (there may be still — 
it is sixty years since I saw it), mostly consisting 
of spacious verandas, up and down and all around, 
at the lake end of the shellroad, where parties could 
have a fish dinner and enjoy the salt breezes, but 
a dinner at "Lake End" was an occasion, not a cli- 
max to a shopping trip. The old shellroad was a 
long drive. Bayou St. John on one side, swamps on 
the other, green with rushes and palmetto, clothed 
with gay flowers of the swamp flag. The road ter- 
minated at Lake Pontchartrain, and there the rest- 
ful piazza and well-served dinner refreshed the in- 
ner woman. 

I am speaking of the gentler sex. No doubt there 
were myriads of cabarets and eating places for men 
on pleasure or business bent. Three o'clock was the 
universal dinner hour, so the discreet mesdames were 
able to return to the city and be ready by early can- 
dlelight for the inevitable "hand round" tea. 

Then there was Carrollton Garden (I think it is 
dead and buried now). There was a short railroad 
leading to Carrollton; one could see open fields and 

^2 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

grazing cattle from the car windows as one crept 
along. Except a still shorter railroad to the Lake, 
connecting with the Lake boats, I think the rural 
road to Carrollton was the only one leading out of 
the city. The Carrollton hotel, like the Lake one, 
was all verandas. I never knew of any guest stay- 
ing there, even one night, but there was a dear little 
garden and lots of summer houses and pagodas, 
covered with jasmines and honeysuckle vines. One 
could get lemonade or orgeat or orange flower syrup, 
and return to the city with a great bouquet of 
monthly roses, to show one had been- on an excur- 
sion. A great monthly rose hedge, true to its name, 
always in bloom, surrounded the premises. To see 
a monthly rose now is to see old Carrollton gardens 
In the forties. 



IX 

THE OLD FRENCH OPERA HOUSE 

IT was on Orleans Street, near Royal — I don't 
have to "shut my eyes and think very hard," 
as the Marchioness said to Dick. Swiveller, to 
see the old Opera House and all the dear people in 
it, and hear its entrancing music. We had "Norma" 
and "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Robert le Dia- 
ble" and "La Dame Blanche," "Huguenots," "Le 
Prophete," just those dear old melodious operas, 
the music so thrillingly catchy that half the young 
men hummed or whistled snatches of it on their way 
home. 

There were no single seats for ladies, only four- 
seated boxes. The pit, to all appearances, was for 
elderly, bald gentlemen only, for the beaux, the 
fashionable eligibles, wandered around in the inter- 
missions or "stood at attention" in the narrow lob- 
bies behind the boxes during the performances. Ex- 
cept the two stage boxes, which were more ample, 
and also afforded sly glimpses towards the wings 
and flies, all were planned for four occupants. Also, 

65 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

all were subscribed for by the season. There was 
also a row of latticed boxes in the rear of the dress 
circle, usually occupied by persons in mourning, or 
the dear old messieurs et mesdames, who were not 
chaperoning a mademoiselle. One stage box be- 
longed, by right of long-continued possession, to Mr. 




The Old French Opera House. 
and Mrs. Cuthbert Bullitt. The opposite box was 
la loge des lions, and no less than a dozen lions 
wandered in and out of it during an evening. Some 
were blase and looked dreadtullv bored, a few were 
young and frisky, but every mortal one of them 
possessed a pompous and self-important mien. 
If weather permitted (we had to consider the 
66 



THE OLD FRENCH OPERA HOUSE 

weather, as everybody walked) and the opera a fa- 
vorite, every seat would be occupied at 8 o'clock, 
and everybody quiet to enjoy the very first notes of 
the overture. All the fashionable young folks, even 
if they could not play or whistle "Yankee Doodle," 
felt the opera was absolutely necessary to their 
social success and happiness. The box was only five 
dollars a night, and pater-familias certainly could 
afford that! 

Think of five dollars for four seats at the most 
fashionable Opera House in the land then, and com- 
pare it with five dollars for one seat in the topmost 
gallery of the most fashionable house in the land 
to-day. Can one wonder we old people who sit by 
our fire and pay the bills wag our heads and talk of 
the degenerate times? 

Toilets in our day were simple, too. French 
muslins trimmed with real lace, pink and blue ba- 
reges with ribbons. Who sees a barege now? No 
need of jeweled stomachers, ropes of priceless pearls 
or diamond tiaras to embellish those Creole ladies, 
many of whom were direct descendants of French 
nobles; not a few could claim a drop of even royal 
blood. 

Who were the beaux? And where are they now? 
It any are living they are too old to hobble into 
the pit and sit beside the old, bald men. 

67 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

It was quite the vogue to saunter into Vincent's, at 
the corner, on the way home. Vincent's was a great 
place and he treated his customers with so much 
"confidence." One could browse about the glass 
cases of pates, brioches, eclairs, meringues, and all 
such toothsome delicacies, peck at this and peck at 
that, lay a dime on the counter and walk out. A 
large Broadway firm in New York attempted that 
way of conducting a lunch counter and had such a 
tremendous patronage that it promptly failed. 
Men went for breakfast and shopping parties for 
lunch, instead of dropping in en passant for an 
eclair. 

As I said, we walked. There were no street cars, 
no 'buses and precious few people had carriages to 
ride in. So we gaily walked from Vincent's to our 
respective homes, where a cup of hot coffee put us 
in condition for bed and slumber. 

Monday morning Mme. Casimir or Mam'zelle 
Victorine comes to sew all day like wild for seventy- 
five cents, and tells how splendidly Rosa de Vries 
(the prima donna) sang "Robert, toi que j'a'ime" 
last night. She always goes, '^Oui, madam e, tou- 
joiirs," to the opera Sunday. Later, dusky Henri- 
ette Blondeau comes, with her tignon stuck full of 
pins and the deep pockets of her apron bulging with 
sticks of bandoline, pots of pomade, hairpins and a 

68 



THE OLD FRENCH OPERA HOUSE 

bandeau comb, to dress the hair of mademoiselle. 
She also had to tell how fine was "Robert," but she 
prefers De Vries in "Norma," "moi." The Casi- 
mirs lived In a kind of cubby-hole way down Ste. 
Anne Street. M. Casimir was assistant In a barber 
shop near the French Market, but such were the 
gallery gods Sunday nights, and no mean critics were 
they. Our nights were Tuesday and Saturday. 

Society loves a bit of gossip, and we had a delight- 
ful dish of it about this time, furnished us by a deni- 
zen of Canal Street, He was "horribly English, 
you know." As French was the fashion then, it 
was an impertinence to swagger with English airs. 
The John Bull in question, with his wife all decked 
out in her Sunday war paint and feathers, found a 
woman calmly seated In his pew at Christ Church, a 
plainly dressed, common appearing woman, who 
didn't even have a flower In her bonnet. The pew 
door was opened wide and a gesture accompanied it, 
which the common-looking somebody did not fail 
to comprehend. She promptly rose and retired into 
the aisle; a seat was offered her nearer the door of 
the church, which she graciously accepted. Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu had asked for a seat In 
that pew, as she bore a letter of introduction to its 
occupant. This incident gave us great merriment, 
for the Inhospitable Englishman had been boasting 
6 69 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of the coming of Lady Mary. I introduce it here, 
for it has a moral which gives a Sunday school flavor 
to my opera reminiscences. Now they have all 
gone where they are happily singing, I hope, even 
better than Rosa de Vries, and where there are no 
doors to the pews. 



X 

MURAL DECORATIONS AND PORTRAITS OF THE PAST 

THE pendulum is swinging. Landscape wall 
papers, after a seventy years' truce, are on 
the warpath, to vanquish damask hang- 
ings and other fabrics that are traps for moths and 
dust and microbes, we old-time people aver. Now, 
in view of the return to favor of landscape wall 
papers, some elegant, expensive and striking speci- 
mens rise in my memory, and clamor to be once 
more displayed to the public. 

I vividly remember a decorated wall at a school 
under the charge of a superannuated Episcopal cler- 
gyman. His aged wife must have possessed 
considerable artistic ability, for she painted, on the 
parlor walls, mythological subjects, as befits a school 
teacher's, if not a preacher's, residence. There were 
Diana and her nymphs (quite modestly wrapped 
in floating draperies) on one side the room, and 
opposite, was Aurora In her chariot, driving 
her team of doves. They were up in the dawning 
sky, and below was such greenery as I presume 

71 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

old Mrs. Ward thought belonged to the period 
of gods and goddesses, but it was strangely 
like the bushes and trees in her own back yard. Va- 
rious other figures were floating or languishing about. 
The colors, on the whole, were not brilliant; in fact, 
artistically subdued. That bit of mural adornment 
was a curiosity to all. I, a little child, thought it 
most wonderful, and it was. All these landscape 
walls had a three or four-foot base of a solid color, 
surmounted by a band of wood, called in those days 
"chair boarding." So the figures came near the level 
of the eye. 

Years after the two old people had joined the 
immortals, I had occasion to call at the house. It 
was a great disappointment to find the parlor wall 
covered with stiff paper, representing slabs of white 
marble (marble, of all things, in that dingy red- 
brick house!). Aurora and Diana, and perhaps 
Calypso, for I imagine the scope was suflliciently 
extensive to comprise such a picturesque immortal, 
were buried under simulated marble. A weather- 
beaten portrait of Major Morgan in full uniform 
hung right over the spot where Aurora drove her 
fluttering birds. I looked at the desecration in dis- 
may, when the voice of old black mammy was 
heard. "Dat is Mars Major in his rag-gi-ments ; 
you never know'd him?" No, I didn't. "And dat 

72 



MURAL DECORATIONS AND PORTRAITS 

odder portrait over dar" (pointing to a simpering 
girl with curly hair) "is Miss Merriky 'fore she 
married de major." Where are those old portraits 
now? The whirligig of time has doubtless whirled 
them away to some obscure closet or garret, where, 
with faces turned to the wall, they await a time 
when there will be a general cleaning up or tearing 
down — then where? Sic transit/ 




Typical Old New Orleans Dwelling. 

I recall, in later life, a wonderful wall paper on 
the broad hall of Judge Chinn's house in West 
Baton Rouge. That was very gay and brilliant, 
somewhat after the Watteau style, swains playing 
on impossible instruments to beauties in various lis- 
tening attitudes; lambs gamboling in the distance, 
birds flying about amid lovely foliage, horsemen on 
galloping steeds with extraordinary trappings. How 
I did love that wall ! It was never permitted the 

73 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

family to cover all that glory with "pillars and 
panels," for the house, shortly after my visit, was 
destroyed by fire, and the debonair ladies, pranc- 
ing steeds and all went up in one great holocaust. 

The new house that rose over the ashes was aptly 
called Whitehall. It was all white, inside and out, 
broad, dead white walls, grand balconies all around 
the mansion dead white; white steps led to the lawn, 
and the trees surrounding had their trunks white- 
washed as high as could be reached by a long pole 
and a brush. All the old portraits and some awful 
prints (it was long before the chromo era) were 
fished out of closets and other hiding places and 
hung about on the white walls. One old man with 
a tremendously long neck and a stiff black stock to 
help hold up his head, and a fierce look, had a pair 
of eyes that looked like great daubs of ink. His 
portrait decorated the parlor, I was warned not 
to handle the gilt-edged books and little trinkets on 
the marble-top center-table, "for your Cousin Chris- 
topher will see you ; notice, whichever way you turn 
his eyes will follow you." I was mortally afraid 
af that old spook till little black Comfort told me, 
"Laws ! if dem eyes could hurt we'd all be'n daid in 
dis house." 

At "The Oaks," Dr. Patrick's plantation, the wall 
paper illustrated scenes from China, in colors not 

74 



MURAL DECORATIONS AND PORTRAITS 

gorgeous, like the last mentioned, neither was the 
house so pretentious. There was no broad, high 
ceilinged hall to ornament with startling figures that 
seemed to jump at you. The orderly processions of 
pigtailed Chinamen in sepia tints could not by any 
possibility get on one's nerves. Whole processions 
wended their way to impossible temples, wedding 
processions, palanquins, and all that; funeral proces- 
sions dwindled away to a mere point in the distance, 
all becomingly solemn, until some of the irrepressible 
Patrick children, with black pencil, or charcoal, or 
ink, put pipes into all the mouths and clouds of 
smoke therefrom spotted the landscape. Moral 
suasion was the discipline of the Patrick children, 
so that freak was not probably followed by after- 
claps, but the Chinese were promptly marched off, 
and the Inevitable white walls were the result. 

Family portraits came forth to brighten the room. 
One notable one that superseded the Chinese wall 
paper was a full-length portrait of Gov. Polndex- 
ter's (everybody knows "Old Poins" was the first 
Governor of the State of Mississippi) first wife, 
who was a sister of Mrs. Patrick. She was a vision 
of beauty, in full evening dress. Facing her was 
the glum, "sandy complected" Governor, not one 
bit fascinated by the sight of his wife's smiling face. 

The fashionable portrait painter of the time was 

75 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Moise; it was he who painted the author's portrait 
shortly after her marriage. He was a dashing, im- 
provident genius, and many of his portraits were 
executed to cancel debts. At one time he designed 
and had made for my husband, in settlement for a 
loan, a handsome silver lidded bowl with alcohol 
lamp beneath. It was known as a pousse cafe and 
was used to serve hot punch to after-dinner parties. 
I am glad to say it has survived all the family vicis- 
situdes, and is an honored heirloom, in company 
with a repousse silver pitcher, which we won as a 
prize for cattle at the Louisiana State Fair, de- 
scribed in a later chapter. 

At John C. Miller's place the house was only one 
story, but it spread over what seemed to be a half 
acre of land. A square hall, which was a favorite 
lounging place for everybody, had wall paper de- 
lineating scenes from India. Women walked to- 
ward the Ganges river, smilingly tripping along with 
huge water jars on their shoulders, in full view of 
another woman descending the steps of a temple, 
with a naked baby, poised aloft, to be thrown into 
the sacred Ganges. A crocodile ruffled the blue 
(very blue) waters, with jaws distended, ready to 
complete the sacrifice. That sacred river seemed to 
course all around the hall, for on another side were 
a number of bathers, who appeared to be utterly 

76 



MURAL DECORATIONS AND PORTRAITS 

oblivious of their vicinity to the mother and babe, 
not to mention the awful crocodile. 

The culmination of landscape wall paper must 
have been reached in the Minor plantation dwelling 
in Ascension parish. Mrs. Minor had received 
this plantation as a legacy, and she was so loyal to 
the donor that the entreaties of her children to 
"cover that wall" did not prevail. It was after that 
style of mural decoration was of the past, that I 
visited the Minors. The hall was broad and long, 
adorned with real jungle scenes from India. A 
great tiger jumped out of dense thickets toward 
savages, who were fleeing in terror. Tall trees 
reached to the ceiling, with gaudily striped boa con- 
strictors wound around their trunks; hissing snakes 
peered out of jungles; birds of gay plumage, paro- 
quets, parrots, peacocks everywhere, some way up, 
almost out of sight in the greenery; monkeys swung 
from limb to limb; ourang-outangs, and lots of al- 
most naked, dark-skinned natives wandered about. 
To cap the climax, right close to the steps one had 
to mount to the story above was a lair of ferocious 
lions ! 

I spent hours studying that astonishing wall 
paper, and I applauded Mrs. Minor's decision, "The 
old man put it there; it shall stay; he liked it, so do 
I." It was in 1849 ^ made that never-to-be-forgot- 

77 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

ten trip to jungle land. The house may still be 
there; I don't know; but I warrant that decorated 
hall has been "done over," especially if little chil- 
dren ever came to invade the premises. Upon the 
departure of landscape wall paper, the pendulum 
swung to depressing simplicity of dead white walls 
or else "pillared and paneled," which is scarcely one 
degree better. 

Old portraits and any kind of inartistic picture 
or print were brought forth to gratify the eye un- 
accustomed to such monotony. Only a few years 
ago I asked: "What became of that military epau- 
letted portrait of old Major Messiah that always 
hung in your mother's hall when we were children?" 
"Oh, it was hanging twenty or more years ago in 
the office of a hardware concern down town. Don't 
know where it is now." 

After the war, inquiring for a lot of portraits of 
various degrees of merit and demerit that disap- 
peared when the Yankees left, we heard that some 
were in negro cabins in West Feliciana. So they 
come and are appreciated, those images of loved 
ones. So they often go, and are despised by those 
who follow us, and who, perchance, never knew the 
original. Now the questions arise, will landscape 
wall papers really return? And in their pristine 
splendor? Surely the scope in brilliancy and variety 

78 



MURAL DECORATIONS AND PORTRAITS 

could not be excelled. The limit was reached al- 
most seventy years ago, and naturally (I was a 
child then) comes as vividly to my mind as the coun- 
terfeit face of my ancestor with eyes following me 
all around the room. The tigers and ourang- 
outangs, even the den of lions and the crocodile of 
the Ganges, never made my little soul quake like the 
searching eyes of "my Cousin Christopher." 



XI 

THOUGHTS OF OLD 

J SHALL begin to think I am in my second child- 
hood by and by. I have just been reading 
of a fashionable wedding where the bride and 
her attendants carried flat bouquets with lace paper 
frills. I don't doubt the revival of the porte bou- 
quet will come next, the slender bouquet holders 
made of filigree silver with a dagger like a short 
hatpin to stick clear through and secure the bou- 
quet — a chain and ring attached to the holder and 
all could be hung from the finger. I used to think, 
a childish looker-on, that it was pretty to see the 
ladies in a quadrille "balancing to your partners," 
"ladies changing," etc., each with a tight little bou- 
quet in a trim little holder swinging and banging 
about from the chain. 

Later the porte bouquets were abandoned, but 
the stiff little posies, in their lacy frills, remained. 
They were symmetrical, a camellia japonica, sur- 
rounded by a tiny row of heliotrope, then a row of 
Grand Duke jasmine, one of violets, finally a soiip- 
^oti of greenery, and the paper bed. James Pollock 

80 



THOUGHTS OF OLD 



had a fund of such rare flowers to draw from, for 
though the Pollock home down on Royal street was 
the simplest of old Creole houses, flush on the street, 






'm.j^^^^^ 













\ 1^ =^^ir^ 



1' V ^ 







I "~>1 







A Creole Parterre. 
only two steps from the banquette leading into a 
modest parlor, there was a tiny parterre in the rear, 
a vision of the most choice collection of plants. How 
it was managed and cultivated I don't know, for it 
was hemmed in on all sides by buildings that in- 
tercepted much of the air and almost all of the sun's 
rays. Still those camellias. Grand Dukes and violets 
thrived and bloomed, and delighted the heart of any 
girl to whom James, the best dancer in society, sent 
them in one of those tight little bouquets on the eve 

of a dance. 

8i 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

I have to-day a much larger parter?'e in my back- 
yard, open to sun and rain and wind, but no amount 
of coddling brings anything better than dock-weed 
and tie-grass. I leave it to the climate of my own 
sunny Southland to explain the problem. The porte 
bouquet will no doubt come in time. I for one will 
hail an old friend. If I am "on deck" when it arrives. 

Last Christmas what should my granddaughter 
receive but a mob cap of gold lace! almost exactly 
like one my mother wore before I can remember. 
Caps ! Every woman when she arrived at middle 
age, and some who found them becoming at an 
earlier age, wore caps. My mother was considered 
very tasty and expert at cap-trimming. She had a 
papier mache, or soft wood dummy head — I know 
she stuck pins into it — on which she fashioned her 
caps. 

Mechlin lace (one rarely sees it now) was 
considered the fashionable cap lace. Remember 
cotton laces and Italian laces and machine-made 
laces were not in existence in those days, neither 
were Hamburg embroideries and Nottingham cur- 
tains, two awful products of to-day; and a thou- 
sand other make-believes, cheap and tawdry now. 
When mother's fine Mechlin edgings became soiled 
she "did them up" herself, clapping the damp lace 
in her hands, pulling out and straightening the 

82 



THOUGHTS OF OLD 

delicate edges — drying them without heat; and she 
had a deft way, too, of what she called "pinching" 
with her dainty fingers; she knife pleated it. The 
net foundation was fitted to the wooden head, the 
lace was attached In folds and frills, and little pink 
rosebuds or some other tiny flower scattered taste- 
fully here and there. Behold a dress cap! One 
can imagine the care and taste and time and thought 
consumed In Its manufacture. And how the old lady 
must have appeared when In full dress! 

Many of those dames wore little bunches of black 
curls to enhance the effect, those tight, stiff little 
curls that looked like they had been wound on a 
slate-pencil. Dear Mrs. Leonard Matthews al- 
ways wore the black curls. Even a few years after 
the war I met the sweet old lady, curls and all, jet 
black, tight little curls, and she looked scarcely older 
than In my earliest recollection of her. 

Well, I must return to cap trimmings to tell of 
a bride. She must have been In the neighborhood 
of seventy, for she made what her friends called 
a suitable match with a widower long past that age. 
They came to the St. Charles Hotel on a kind of 
honeymoon trip. She decorated her head, oh, ye 
cherubim and seraphim ! with a fussy cap sprinkled 
with sprays of orange flowers ! 

I, who revel In a towering white pompadour, 
83 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

have just had the present of a soft silk cap, with 
frills and bows. I presume it will be useful on the 
breezy piazzas of the mountains a week hence; 
but it looks to me now that the caps of our mothers 
and grandmothers are on the march hitherward. 
I possess a few "Moniteurs des Dames," dated in 
the late forties, that contain pictures and patterns 
for "bonnets," as they were called. Who knows 
but they may be useful yet? 

Now, "in regard to" (as a lady we all know pref- 
aces every remark) — "in regard to" frills, in my 
young days we had to make our own frills. No- 
body had dreamed even of machine-made ruchings 
any more than of vehicles that run all over the 
streets without the aid of horses. We made our 
frills of lawn, neatly gathered on to a band, and 
what is more, they had to be fluted with hot irons. 
The making was not beyond everybody's skill, but 
the "doing up" and fluting was way beyond me, as 
beyond many others. How queer it is, when we 
recall to mind the images of people so long absent 
that they are almost forgotten, the image presents 
itself, emphasized by some peculiarity of dress or 
speech. When I think of Dr. Bein's daughter Su- 
sanna, whom I knew and loved so well, it is 
with the beautifully fluted frill she always wore and 
so excited my envy. Now, every Biddy In the kitchen 

84 



THOUGHTS OF OLD 

and every little darky one sees wandering around 
wears handsomer frills than Susanna and I ever 
dreamed of. 

Parasols had heavy fringes; so, to show to ad- 
vantage, they were carried upside down, the ferule 
end fitted with a ring to be, like the bouquet holders, 
hung from the finger. My sister had a blue parasol, 
with pink fringe, that I thought too beautiful for 
words. How I should laugh at it now! 

Best frocks, such as could be utilized for dinners 
and parties, were made with short sleeves, "caps," 
they were called, and tapes sewed in the armholes; 
long sleeves similarly equipped were tied in under 
the "caps." I used to see even party guests take off 
their sleeves as they put on their gloves to descend 
to the dancing room. Black, heelless slippers, with 
narrow black ribbons, wound over the instep, and 
crossed and recrossed from ankle, way up, over 
white stockings, were the style; it was a pretty 
fashion. 

I recall the autumn of 1849, when I, a young 
girl, was at the Astor House, in New York. Com- 
ing downstairs one morning to breakfast, how sur- 
prised I was at glaring notices posted on walls and 
doors, "Hop to-night." You may well believe I 
was at the hop, though I had no suitable dress. I 
was only a looker-on. 

7 85 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

When I mentioned slippers I recalled that hotel 
hop, for Mme. Le Vert wore a pink silk dress and 
pink satin slippers, all laced up and tied up with 
broad pink ribbons. Nobody had ever seen the like 
before. Mme. Walton, her mother, was on hand, 
and hopped, too, just as spry a hop as any young 
girl. I contrived to sidle along and keep near to 
Mme. Le Vert, for I was as fascinated as any one 
of her numerous beaux. Dr. Le Vert, by the way, 
had just started on a trip to Europe for his health. 
Going to Europe then was like taking a trip to Mars 
now. 

I heard Mme. Le Vert talking to four dif- 
ferent swains In four different languages. I believe 
she considered her linguistic versatility her strong 
point. She surely was a most remarkable woman. 
She was as tender and sweet to me, a very plain, 
simple, unattractive girl, as to her swellest friends. 
One does not easily forget such an episode of early 
life. I never met Mme. Le Vert after that autumn. 
We all returned South together on the Crescent City, 
the pioneer steamer between New York and New 
Orleans. 

I will not moralize or sermonize over these remi- 
niscences. They are all of the dead past. Both 
fashions and people are gone. 



86 



XII 

WEDDING CUSTOMS THEN AND NOW 

WE were lingering about the breakfast table 
having such a comfortable, chatty review 
of the last night's party, when a familiar 
voice was heard. "Oh! congratulate me; we have 
captured him; they are engaged." That was the 
first time I had ever heard an "announcement" from 
headquarters. It was made to Mrs. Slocomb, in 
her library. There followed many amusing par- 
ticulars, audible to us, in the adjoining room, but 
we were discreet young girls; perhaps that was one 
reason we were among the very few invited to the 
wedding, which so quickly followed the engagement 
that it was a complete surprise to the whole com- 
munity. 

Sixty years ago only Catholics went to the sanc- 
tuary for a wedding ceremony. Protestant wed- 
dings were home affairs, necessarily confined to 
family and nearest friends. Houses being limited 
in space, company was limited in number. No city 
house could boast of a ballroom; few had "double 
parlors." 

87 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

At the wedding whose "announcement" was such 
a surprise to us, I think our family and the Slo- 
combs were the only guests, except the families of 
the groom's business associates. The idea of having 
a grand reception to announce a marriage engage- 
ment, to which everybody who is anybody is invited, 
was unheard of. The anxiety, too, of the parties 
interested to get the news in a suitable form in the 
daily papers, for the butcher boy and the sewing 
girl, out of the social swim, to read, accompanied 
by the genealogies of the engaged people, the 
wealth of the girl and how she came by it, and the 
numbers of clubs of which the young man is a mem- 
ber, as though the money and the clubs Were "the 
chief end of man," was unheard of, too. We did 
things on a very different scale sixty years ago! 

I recall my astonishment when Elena Longer told 
me her sister Heda was married the night before, 
for Elena and I (we were ten years old at the time) 
had played together all that day of the wedding, 
and not a hint was imparted to me of the impending 
event. I had not even heard the name of Mr. 
Charles Kock, the fiance, mentioned. There were 
already six married daughters, with hosts of chil- 
dren, at that time in the Longer family, so there 
could have been little room on such an occasion for 
outsiders, even if their presence had been desired. 

88 



WEDDING CUSTOMS THEN AND NOW 

Wedding presents were not made, either. The first 
time we saw a display of wedding gifts, how sur- 
prised we were, and how we wondered as to how It 
happened! There were not many, nor were they 
expensive, so for ever so long I could have given 
the list and the names of the donors. Dear Maria 
Shute, who, as I remember, was the bridesmaid, 
presented a pearl-handled paper cutter! That ar- 
ticle might have escaped my memory, along with the 
others, but years after that wedding I met Maria, 
then Mrs. Babcock, and we talked of It all, and had 
a merry laugh over the paper cutter. 

Fifty-eight years ago, when I married, I was sur- 
prised by a solitary wedding present, a napkin ring! 
From the most unexpected source It came. The 
giver Is long since dead and gone; dead and gone 
also Is the napkin ring. 

At the wedding of Caroline Hennen to Mr. Mulr, 
the first I ever attended, there were not a dozen 
guests, but the rooms were filled. Indeed the Hen- 
nen family easily filled one of them. At this wed- 
ding we met Mr. William Babcock from New York, 
a forty-niner en route to California (this was in 
1849). The following day I went with him to call 
on and introduce him to his young cousin, an inti- 
mate friend of mine he was desirous of meeting. 
She was of that handsome family of Smiths, a niece 

89 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of Mrs. Labouisse. I never saw either him or her 
afterwards, for within the following fortnight they 
quietly married and started "round the Horn" to 
San Francisco. More than fifty years after I saw 
their children and grandchildren in California. 

Some of us must remember genial, gossipy Mrs. 
Garnet Duncant, the hon vivant, so bright, so fat 
and so entertaining? She it was who called one day 
(sixty years ago) to tell us Amelia Zacharie had 
married her invalid cousin, and sailed away with 
him. Those two are the only cases I recall of wed- 
ding trips, and both were permanent trips, for there 
was no intention of a return to New Orleans of 
either couple. It was the fashion for the newly- 
mated to remain quietly in the home nest, until one 
of their very own be made ready for their reception. 

James Pollock, I recall to mind, made a late ap- 
pearance (in 1850) at a dance given by the Lan- 
fears, on Julia street, that old "13 Buildings." The 
Lanfears were the last to leave that once fashionable 
row. Pollock swept in late, full of apologies. His 
sister Mana had married that evening and he was 
detained. 

The only other wedding trip I can chronicle was 
one where the bridegroom went alone. Do you re- 
member what an excitement there was, years ago, 
when a wealthy young man disappeared from the 

90 



WEDDING CUSTOMS THEN AND NOW 

side of his bride the morning after the wedding? 
There were no wires or wireless then to faciHtate 
the hunt, undertaken with frantic haste, and con- 
tinuing two mortally anxious weeks. He was even- 
tually discovered, in a semi-conscious, dazed con- 
dition, on a wharfboat at Baton Rouge, or some 
such river town. He recovered from that attack, 
to be blown away by another "brain storm" a few 
years later. It was twenty years after this second 
disappearance that the courts pronounced him dead, 
and the widow permitted to administer on the estate. 

In those days old maids were rare. Every girl, 
so to say, married. The few exceptions served to 
emphasize the rarity of an unmated female. 

Divorces were so rare when I was young that 
they were practically unknown in polite circles. I 
know of cases, and you would know of them, too, 
if I mentioned names, where men sent their erring 
or cast-off wives, not to Coventry, but to Paris, and 
made them stay there. One such died in Paris 
lately at the age of ninety-five, who was packed off, 
under a cloud of suspicion. There was no divorce, 
no open scandal. She simply went and stayed ! He 
simply stayed! 

Last winter I was invited to a view (sounds like 
a picture exhibit!) of the trousseau and wedding 
gifts of a fashionable young lady. I was stunnned 

91 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

with amazement! A large room filled to overflow- 
ing with glass, china, silver, mirrors, everything a 
body could require, and a vast array of utterly use- 
less articles! and the trousseau which the tired 
mother, who has had nervous prostration ever since, 
spent months accumulating in Paris. My gracious! 
the best hlanclihscuse in the land could not cope suc- 
cessfully with all that flimsy finery, laces and rib- 
bons. I could only look and wonder, "What can 
all this lead to?" (I add here, anticipating events: 
It led to an apartment and one maid servant.) 
The young man was a salaried clerk, and the young 
girl utterly unfit to care for even the superabun- 
dance of china and silver, so much more than they 
could possibly find use for in a three-story house, 
not to mention a six-room apartment and "light 
housekeeping." I wonder if the whirligig of time 
won't bring back some of the simplicity of my day? 
Already it is the style to "fire out of sight" the 
useless bric-a-brac ornaments that twenty years ago 
cluttered up drawing rooms till one had to pick her 
way carefully lest she stumble over a blue china cat, 
or tilt over a bandy-leg table covered with ivory 
idols and Chinese mandarins with bobbing heads. 
Some of the most fashionable drawing rooms to-day 
are already so stripped of furniture one has to wan- 
der around quite a bit to find a chair to sit on; not 

92 



WEDDING CUSTOxMS THEN AND NOW 

even a pier mirror to prink before, nor a parlor 
clock, flanked by "side pieces," on the mantel. All 
that banished for stunning simplicity. Not so, how- 
ever, the costumes and entertainments, which are 
becoming, so it seems to a near-sighted old lady, 
more and more luxurious. Perhaps this extreme 
(we all dote on extremes) of simplicity will come 
to take the place of many other equally absurd ex- 
tremes of the present day. Qui vivra verra. 



XIII 

A COUNTRY WEDDING IN 1 846 

WE missed the train ! and here we were in 
the old Bayou Sara Hotel, looking for 
some kind of locomotion. We had eigh- 
teen miles to make, and if the Belle Creole had made 
the run we would have been all right, but the Belle 
Creole was not a flier; it had no time for arrivals 
or departures; it just jogged along at its own good 
will, answering every call, running all sorts of an- 
tics up and down the river. Dick started out to 
see what he could do. 

I sat on the dirty porch, looking through Novem- 
ber china trees towards the river. Is there anything 
more depressing than a view of china trees in No- 
vember? The pretty, fragrant, blue flowers long 
gone, and the mocking birds (nobody ever heard 
of English sparrows then!) that had drunk their 
fill of intoxicating liquor from the scattering china 
berries were gone too. The train we had missed, 
the dear old Belle Creole always missed, was a kind 
of private affair. The whole outfit, about twenty 

94 



A COUNTRY WEDDING IN 1846 

miles of track, the lumbering cars, the antiquated 
engines, and I think, too, the scattering woods that 
suppHed the fuel were all the private property of 
the McGehees. The McGehees had a cotton fac- 
tory in the neighborhood of Woodville, twenty 
miles from the river. They had one train, cheap 
and dirty, that made one trip a day, going with 
freight very early in the morning, returning later, 
with freight and one small passenger car for the 
owner's use. This concern stopped for wood and 
water and nothing else, and was the only means of 
transport for "casuals" like ourselves from the 
river to Woodville. Ladies going back and forth 
and gentlemen of leisure used their own conveyance, 
a turtle-back affair that was entered by a row of 
steps. The dear Belle Creole was too much of a 
convenience to have a time table, so It was useless to 
construct a time table and plan to "connect" with 
that equally free and easy train. Some disgruntled 
chap chalked on an unused car, left on the rails as 
a depot, "We belong to the McGehees, and go when 
we please." 

Well, to make the matter short, though it was 
long to me, on that dirty porch by the china trees, 
Dick found a man with a turtle-top coach, and a 
harness mended by cords and stakes and bits of 
rawhide. The man had a mended look, too, but he 

95 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

was sober, and for a good, round sum agreed to 
take us to Laurel Hill. Laurel Hill, where we pro- 
posed to go, was a post office station, about ten 
miles from Woodville and four miles across country. 
We meandered along, tired and out of all patience. 
At the date of this tramp I was a little girl and not 
given to moralizing. When we arrived at Laurel 
Hill we were told, "Creek is up; been a big rain 
somewhere; not even a horseman has crossed all 
day." There was no accommodation for man or 
beast at the queer little depot, no place to sit 
and nothing to sit on. It was long after dark, and 
there was no one to tell us the story of the high 
water but a negro man, who was shutting up the 
one door of the building. There was nothing left 
us but to go to the nearest plantation house and ask 
for lodgings. 

I was so tired I felt we had gone ten miles further 
when we reached Major Dick Haile's, though it 
really was only a few miles. The tired horses and 
the sleepy driver made slow work. There was a 
gate and an opening, but the house was pitch dark, 
every door closed and everybody apparently asleep. 
The nags were willing to stand, unhitched, beside 
the fence; not an automobile or flying machine could 
have scared them; they were asleep, too. 

After much knocking and calling at what seemed 

96 



A COUNTRY WEDDING IN 1846 

to be the door of entrance, an old gentleman, candle 
in hand and very scantily dressed, demanded to 
know what was wanted. My brother called that we 
were on our way to the General's, and we could not 
cross the creek, so we begged the privilege of a lodg- 
ing for the night. 

"General's for the wedding? Come right in." 
A brighter light was procured, and before we were 
seated in the reception room we heard the hospitable 
voice, "Put your carriage under the shed, give those 
horses a good feed, then come to the kitchen and 
get a bite for yourself." The two young daughters 
came in, hurriedly dressed (people did not have 
bathrobes and wrappers seventy years ago). I was 
awfully tired and awfully sleepy, and I began to 
think our lodgings were to be parlor chairs, long 
before the dining room door was opened, and the 
genial old gentleman, in night shirt and trousers, 
led the way to the table. We had fried chicken, 
hot cornbread, coffee, cakes, and I don't know what 
else. It would take me back forty years to see a 
cook roused at midnight, to prepare such a meal. 
I presume she even took herself to the roost and 
caught her young chicken by the legs and wrung its 
neck before she reached the newly-made fire. Major 
Haile knew we had not broken our fast at the town 
hotel. 

97 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

It was late the following day when we all as- 
sembled to just as fine a breakfast, and heard the 
major say, "Your 'turnout' is gone. I sent to see 
about the condition of the creek; it goes down about 
as fast as it rises. When you are rested my car- 
riage is at your disposal. Your driver was not used 
to these roads, but mine knows every crossing in the 
creek." 

It was a four-mile drive, even after we had 
crossed the waters. The wedding house we found 
in commotion. There were no caterers or experts 
even in New Orleans in 1846. The wedding supper 
was in process of preparation, under the superin- 
tendence of a noted old cakemaker from Woodville, 
nine miles off. Everybody was busy; only General 
McCausland, the dear old master of the house, was 
quietly seated by his parlor window, a very old man, 
but a soldier withal, who could rise to emergencies 
when required. I drew up a chair and explained 
our delay, and told him how grandly hospitable 
his neighbor was. The two old men were the last 
remaining ones of their company of the battle of 
New Orleans. Their homes were in payment from 
the Government for their services. The dear old 
gentlemen said they were neither general nor major; 
they were simple soldiers who had discharged their 
services and accepted their pay. Both the men were 

98 



A COUNTRY WEDDING IN 1846 

Irish, both poor boys. They worked hard, soon 
exhausted the old red soil of their neighborhood. 

Later the General moved his workmen to the river 
bottoms, so that, while living for health's sake in 
the old home, the house of which he originally 
helped to build, his income came from Bayou For- 
doche, many miles away. 

Time flew; neighbors had arrived, the table was 
spread in the long back porch. The guests, many 
of them, lived miles and miles away, in common 
country roads, often through dense woods — a long 
drive under best circumstances, a perilous one at 
night, everybody waiting, everybody in a hurry, 
everybody getting tired and fretful. It was long 
after the appointed time, and the New Orleans 
preacher had missed the train! Old Dilsey in the 
kitchen was mad because her pig was getting too 
brown; Elfey in the porch worrying that her Ice 
cream was waiting too long; ladies In the parlor 
trying to kill time; men wandering around the front 
yard in restless groups. Carriages had been to the 
depot; no appearance of Mr. Jahleel Woodbridge, 
the New Orleans minister. He was endeared to the 
family, had been for years their minister at Wood- 
ville. Bride, in all her regal attire, upstairs in tears; 
no Presbyterian preacher nearer than ten miles away. 
So we waited and waited. At last the General sent 

99 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

for his especial groom, ordered him to take the 
buggy and go four miles through the woods, where 
there was a Methodist itinerant, and tell him to 
come without delay to marry the couple. 

The accommodating preacher came, just as he 
was. He had been plowing his field, and his wife, 
off to see a sick child, had carried the keys with her. 
He could not even get a clean handkerchief, but 
he came in his workaday suit. The company hastily 
assembled. He performed the ceremony, gave them 
his blessings, and congratulated her on her "escape 
from the quicksands and shoals of celibacy." Rec- 
ognizing his own condition at the time, he begged 
to be excused from refreshments, and took a rapid 
and hurried departure. The kindly man was scarce 
gone when Mr. Jahleel Woodbridge arrived in a 
coach, most astonishingly like the one we had used 
the previous day. Only a year or two later the hos- 
pitable Major passed away; shortly after the Gen- 
eral followed him, and the dear old homes have 
passed away also from the face of the earth. 



XIV 

THE BELLES AND BEAUX OF FORTY 

DO not think I mean to imply the belles and 
beaux of which I am about to speak were 

forty years old, but they had their but- 
terfly existence in the year 1840. Some, no doubt, 
fluttered around before, and a few after that date, 
but they all were of that era of simple life that, 
alas ! is of the distant past — a host, as Auctioneer 
Beard used to say when parading his goods, "too 
multitudinous to particularize." In the first place, 
the costumes, as well as the customs of society, were 
so different from those of the present day that they 
marshal before my mind's eye almost like a fancy 
dress parade. 

Miss Ellen Johnson, who became later the wife 
of William B. Walker (of the firm of Woodlief & 
Walker), and her sister, Malvina, wife of our cele- 
brated Dr. Warren Stone, wore the most beautiful 
curls — wore them long after that style ceased to 
be haiit ton. I have some "Moniteurs des Dames" 
of that early date that afford insight Into costumes 

8 lOI 



SOCTAr. IJFE IN OI.D NEW ORLEANS 

then worn. The long pointed waist, chuck full of 
real, liard, stiff whalebones (all the whalebones 
must have been used up then; nobody can lind 
one now), corset also whalcboned to the limit, 
laced at the back and with literally a board 
ui-* the front, at least three inches wide — a 
real board, apple tree wood preferred, hard 
and stiff and unyicldini;'. Ladies so p;irtled up walked 
and stood and sat, too, like drum majors; no round, 
stooping shoulders; one just had to stand straight, 
with an apple tree board as a constant reminder. 1 
used even to hear that in cases where the poise had 
a tendencv to lapse it was not unusual lor the victim 
to wear tlie corset night and day. 

The tournure of 1840 was buried in such obliv- 
ion that it requires one to be almost eighty years 
old to drag it forth and display its hideousness, ex- 
plain its construction, riie tournure, called "tchuny" 
for short, was long and round, the size and shape 
of the biggest kind of a rolling pin, such as your 
cook uses for pastry. The ends, however, tapered 
to points, which met and were secured in front of 
the waist. It was stuffed with moss, or cotton, or 
hair, I don't know what, for the monstrosity "came 
reaciy-made" from France. Over this awful preci- 
pice the full gathered dress skirt fell in rippling cas- 
cades. I remember a chine silk, an indistinct, 

102 



THK liKL/.ES AND BEAUX OV FORTY 

plaided purple and green; it was ruffled to the waist, 
and over the tchuny it hung in irregular folds. 7"o 
my childhood's eye it was most graceful and beauti- 
ful. Good-by, tchuny! I am sure you will never 
resurrect. Your reign was disastrous to taste. You 
lived one short decade; without a mourner when 
you departed. Good-by, tchuny! 

Whatever did become of chine silks? Can it 
be possible they are back on the counters masquerad- 
ing under another name? I never see a silk now 
that bears any resemblance to the pretty chine of 
1840. Xor do I see tarletans of that date. It re- 
quired a whole piece (or bolt) of that goods for a 
dress. It had to have at least three skirts, one over 
the other, to give the diaphanous effect. Such sweet, 
simple dresses they were, too. Miss Mary Jane 
Matthews, a belle of the forties, wore a pink tarle- 
tan, trimmed with wreaths of small white roses, that 
was an inspiration. One very striking one comes to 
mind, gold colored, garnished with red hollyhocks! 
I think some Western girl must have sported that; 
it was scarcely simple enough for Creole taste. 

Emma Shields was a noted beauty. I recall a 
plaster bust of Queen Victoria, idealized beyond all 
reason or recognition, one of my brothers kept on 
a shelf in his room. He adored it because he saw 
a resemblance to beautiful Emma Shields. She, 

103 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

poor girl, married unfortunately, and dropped sud- 
denly out of sight. About the same time an acci- 
dental flourish of a feather duster knocked Queen 
Victoria off the shelf — and smashed my brother's 
idol. 

Don't I recall as though he stood before me this 
minute, on my father's balcony, Mr. Peter Ander- 
son? Tall and thin and angular (he imagined he 
looked like Henry Clay, and he was of similar 
build), dresseci in what was known as moleskin, a 
tan-colored goods looking strangely like rough-fin- 
ished kid, the trousers so skin-tight and so firmly 
strapped under the shoe that he had to assume a 
sitting posture with considerable deliberation and 
care. 

Here comes Adolphus Hamilton, a quiet eligible, 
more known in business than in social circles, but 
the far-seeing mammas kept an eye on him, he was 
such a hon parti. One fine day he surprised 
these mammas by arriving with his bride from a 
trip to Natchez. Henry Hollister, too, was a busi- 
ness man who made few social calls, but was in 
evidence at all the dances. A few years ago I 
met his daughter at a summer resort. She was 
prodigiously amused that papa, now hobbling about 
with a gouty foot and stout cane, ever could have 
been a dancing beau. 

104 



THE BELLES AND BEAUX OF FORTY 

George W. Kendall went off one fine day, to what 
he proposed would be a kind of picnic, in the wilds 
of Western Texas. His Santa Fe expedition spun 
out a longer and more varied experience than he 
contemplated, of which his graphic account, now un- 
happily out of print, is most entertaining. He mar- 
ried in France, and in 7'exas during the war we met 
him, after a lapse of many years. He had founded 
the town of New Braunfels, near San Antonio, and 
retired, full of years, and full of interest in the 
rough life around him, so different from the New 
Orleans of his earlier days and the Paris of his 
gayer ones. 

The Miltenberger brothers were never old. They 
danced and made themselves admired through sev- 
eral generations of belles. The "sere and yellow 
leaf" could never be applied to a Miltenberger. 
Evergreens were they, game to the last, for no 
doubt they are all gone, and the places that knew 
them will know them no more. 

A. K. Josephs, a lawyer of some note and a very 
acceptable visitor, was a replica in the way of 
flowered waistcoast and dangling chains of a promi- 
nent man of his race in England, Disraeli. Don't I 
see a bird of paradise waistcoat? Indeed I do. 
And also a waistcoat of similar style sent to another 
prominent beau of the period, a black satin confec- 

105 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

tion, with gorgeous peacocks embroidered on the 
ample front. I don't think the recipient of that 
garment ever appeared in it. Flamboyant as were 
the waistcoats of that day, a peacock with spread 
tail was the limit. They are all dead, those belles 
and beaux of the forties. The old lady chronicler 
could expect nothing else of these folks she loves to 
remember and talk of to children and grandchildren, 
who listen with becoming patience, no doubt often 
thinking, "Dear grandma must be nearing her 
dotage." 



XV 



AS IT WAS IN MY DAY 

I AM like the deaf old lady who, when asked 
why she took a box at the opera when she 
could not hear, replied, "I can see." So it is 
on piazzas at summer hotels, I do not overhear re- 
marks, so perforce the pleasure of gossip is denied 
me, but "I can see," and no doubt do observe more 
than those who have the other faculty to play upon; 
also I see and moralize. Last summer in the moun- 
tains didn't I see young girls, young society girls, 
educated girls who ought to have known better, with 
bare heads and bare arms playing tennis in the hot 
sun; and, worse still, racing over the golf links? 
I could see them from my window, equally exposed, 
chasing balls and flourishing clubs. The sun in 
August is pitiless even on those breezy mountains, 
so I was scarcely surprised when one young girl was 
overcome by heat and exposure, and was brought 
to her mother at the hotel In a passing gro- 
cer's cart or lumber wagon. I tell my grand- 
children who want to "do like other girls" that is 

107 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

not the way "other girls" did in my day. Grandma 
may be so old that she forgets, but she moralizes 
all the same. These athletic girls come back to city 
homes so sunburnt and with such coarse skin they 
have to repair to a skin specialist, and have the 
rough cuticle burnt off with horrid acids, and be 
polished up before the society season opens. 

There are, of course, extremes, but years ago 
young ladies took more care of their complexions 
and of their hair, too. Years back of years, I 
don't know how they did. In my day we girls 
loved to visit the granddaughter of a voluble dame 
and listen to the old lady's talk, just like I am 
talking now. She thought we were criminally care- 
less with our "skins," as she called it. Why, when 
she was young, her skin was so thin and clear that 
"one saw little blue veins meandering her neck." 
We always heard something as reminiscent in that 
house to laugh over till we saw the old lady again, 
and heard something equally remarkable of her 
youth. She was living in the past, as I am now, as 
I return to my experiences. One young girl visited 
me, ever so many years ago, who wore one of those 
awful, long, scoop sunbonnets all the time she was 
not at table or in bed. She looked like the pro- 
verbial lily. I used to wish she would take off that 
sunbonnet and say something, for she was dumb as 

io8 



AS IT WAS IN MY DAY 

a lily. I have entirely forgotten her name, though 
she was my guest for a whole stupid week; but I re- 
call she was a relative or friend of the Morses. 
I don't know Mr. Morse's name; he was called 
Guncotton Morse, for he invented an explosive of 
that name, which the United States Government 
appropriated during the war. 

Years after this young girl's visit to me I called 
on the charming Morse family in Washington. He 
was then urging his "claim." Every Southerner in 
Washington was after a "claim" at that time. I 
nearly broke my neck falling over a green china dog 
or a blue china cat in their dark parlor. Enterpris- 
ing Morse barricaded himself behind his explosive, 
but I think he failed in his fight. I find I have 
wandered from the girls having their skins burned 
off to the Morses and their blue china cat! . . . 
In my days there were no specialists except cancer 
doctors. I think they always flourished — there were 
no skin specialists. A doctor was a doctor, noth- 
ing more nor less, and he was supposed to know all 
that was necessary of the "human form divine." He 
did, too, for people did not have the new-fangled 
diseases of to-day. A woman's hospital! Oh, 
heavens! Only last week I saw a friend, old 
enough to know better, but we never are so old we 
don't want to rid our faces of pimples and warts 

109 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

and wrinkles. This friend was a sight, I was really 
alarmed for her. She had been to a specialist. Her 
face was fiery red, all the skin removed by acid. 
Yesterday I saw her again, cured of sunburn and all 
the ills skin Is heir to. Her complexion was that of 
the lily girl who wore the scoop sunbonnet. I do 
not advise you to try the experiment. It is shock- 
ingly painful, and does not always prove a success. 

When I was a little girl, more than seventy years 
ago, mother made me, for summer romps in the 
country, gloves of nankeen, that well covered 
the wrist, had a hole for the thumb and a deep 
flap to fall over the hand. It was lucky they were 
easily made, and nankeen was not expensive, for I 
hated them and had a way of losing them In the 
currant bushes. Maybe you never saw nankeen? 
Gentlemen's waistcoats were often made of It, and 
little boys' trousers. If I lost my scoop sunbonnet 
one day — and It was surprising how easily I lost It! 
— it was sewed on the next. There were no such 
things as hatpins — and we had pigtails anyway, 
so they would have been of no use. Such tortures 
were inflicted when we were running wild over the 
blue grass farm, but no doubt the little Creole 
girls on the lakeshore were similarly protected. The 
hair specialist was not In evidence either. 

Ladies had their hair done up with bandoline and 
no 



AS IT WAS IN MY DAY 

pomatums made of beef's marrow and castor oil 
and scented with patchouli; hair was done into mar- 
velous plaits and puffs. A very much admired style 
which Henriette Blondeau, the fashionable hair 
dresser, achieved, was a wide plait surrounding a 
nest of stiff puffs. It was called the "basket of 
fruit." The front locks were tiny, fluffy curls each 
side the face and long ringlets to float over the 
shoulders. We all remember Henriette Blondeau. 
She dressed my sister's hair in the early forties, and 
she dressed mine ten years later, and I met her in 




St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans. 

the hall of the St. Charles Hotel, plying her trade, 
twenty years later still, the same Henriette, with 

III 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

the same ample apron, the tools of her trade sticking 
out from her pockets. Now, almost forty years 
later still, she walks the streets of New Orleans no 
more. I hope she rests somewhere in the old French 
cemetery, for she knew and gossiped with so many 
who are taking their long sleep in that peaceful 
spot. 

Mother made — no doubt your grandmother did, 
too — the pomade that was used on our hair. It 
was used, too, very freely; our locks plastered down 
good and smooth and flat. You may wonder how 
long hair so treated could last; just as long as hair 
ruffled the wrong way and marcelled with warm 
irons lasts our girls to-day. Mother's pomade was 
made of beef's marrow and castor oil. After the 
marrow was rendered to a fluid state, oil was added, 
then perfume, the whole beaten in a deep bowl until 
perfectly cold and white. Mother would beat and 
beat, add a few drops more of essence of bergamot, 
smell and smell and beat and smell, until she had to 
call a fresh nose to see if it was all right. I re- 
member being told to try my olfactories on the soft, 
creamy stuff. A naughty brother gave my head a 
blow that sent my little pug-nose to the bottom of the 
bowl ! My face was covered to the ears, and while 
mother scraped it with a spoon and scolded Henry, 
she was entreating me not to cry and have tears 

112 



AS IT WAS IN MY DAY 

spoil her pomade. Maybe I might have forgotten 
how the stufif was made and how it looked, but for 
that ridiculous prank of the dearest brother ever 
was. 

I have a sweet little miniature of that brother 
Henry, namesake of my father's dear friend, Henry 
Clay, with the queer collared coat and flourish- 
ing necktie of the day, and his long, straight hair 
well plastered with mother's good pomade. The 
dear man went to Central America, on a pleasure 
tour to the ruins of Uxmal in 1844. The vessel on 
which he sailed for home from Campeache, in Sep- 
tember of that year, disappeared in the Gulf. We 
never had any tidings of how, or when, or where. 
I remember the firm of J. W. Zacharie was con- 
signee of that ill-fated Doric, and how tenderly Mr. 
Zacharie came to my stricken mother, and how 
much he did to obtain information, and how for 
weeks after all hopes were abandoned my mother's 
heart refused to believe her boy was indeed lost. 
Every night for months she placed with her own 
trembling hands a lamp in the window of Henry's 
room, to light him when he came. She never gave 
up some remnant of hope. So far as I know, only 
one friend of that dear brother, one contemporary, 
is living now, in New Orleans. She is the last of 
her generation; I am the last of mine. 

113 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

In those days there were few patent medicines, 
washes and lotions. There was a Jayne's hair tonic, 
and somebody's chologogue, that was a fever cure 
much in evidence on plantations, for quinine and 
blue mass pills — others, too — were made by hand. 
I have made many a pill. We had an old negro 
woman who was daft on the subject of medicine. 
There was not an earthly thing the matter with 
Hannah — she was just a chronic grumbler, begging 
for "any kind of pill." I doctored her successfully, 
making for her bread pills, rolling them in a little 
rhubarb dust to give them a nasty taste. They did 
her a world of good. Mother made our lip salve 
(didn't your grandmother?) of white wax and sweet 
oil. We did not have cold cream in those days. 

When by accident, or some other way, our faces 
tanned, a wash overnight of sour buttermilk was 
all that was required. It was not very pleasant, 
and nobody wanted to occupy the room with you on 
sour buttermilk night. Reason obvious. Kentucky 
belles, who were noted for their rosy cheeks, often 
increased the bloom by a brisk rubbing of the 
leaves of the wild mullein. Except rice powder 
(and that is not a cosmetic) no cosmetics were in 
use. 

Ve can recall at a later date than my girlhood 
a lady from somewhere up the coast married a 

114 



AS IT WAS IN MY DAY 

finicky cotton broker In New Orleans. They made a 
wedding trip to Paris, and she returned with her 
face enameled. I don't think it could have been 
very skillfully done, for she had to be so careful 
about using the muscles of the face that she was 
absolutely devoid of expression. Once, in a mo- 
ment of forgetfulness or carelessness, she "cracked 
a smile," which cracked the enamel. She returned 
to Paris for repairs. I saw her on the eve of sail- 
ing, and do not know if she ever returned. 



XVI 

FANCY DRESS BALL AT THE MINT IN 185O 

I HAVE never heard of a society ball in a United 
States mint building, before nor since, but the 
Kennedys, who gave this one, were a power in 
the social world at that time — and ambitious beyond 
their means. Rose and Josephine, the two oldest 
of quite a flock of daughters, were debutantes that 
winter. Both were handsome and accomplished. 
Rose was also a famous pianist, even in those days 
when every woman strove to excel in music, and it 
was customary to entertain even a casual caller with 
a sonata. Gottschalk declared Rose Kennedy ren- 
dered his famous "Bamboula" better than he did 
himself, and to hear her was to rise and dance. 

Who was at that fancy ball? Everybody who 
was anybody in the fifties. The Eustises — George 
and Mathilde, George as "a learned judge" (he 
was son of Chief Justice Eustis), and Mathilde in 
pure white and flowing veil was a bewitching nun. 
George, years after, married the only child of the 
banker-millionaire, W. C. Corcoran, in Washington. 

116 



FANCY DRESS BALL AT THE MINT IN 1850 

Mathilde married Alan Johnson, an Englishman; 
both are long since dead. There was Mrs. John 
Slidell, of "Mason and Slidell" fame, a "marquise," 
in thread lace and velvet, her sisters, the Misses 
Deslonde, "peasant girls of France." Mathilde 
Deslonde became the wife of Gen. Beauregard, and 
her sister, Caroline, married Mr. R. W. Adams. 
All three sisters are with the departed. Col. and 
Mrs. John Winthrop, "gentleman and lady of the 
nineteenth century," the jolly colonel announced. 
Who fails to recall, with a smile, the Winthrops, 
who lived in Royal Street, near Conti; near neigh- 
bors of the — long departed — Bonfords? The genial 
colonel became a tottering old man, asking his de- 
voted wife "who and where are we?" before he 
peacefully faded away. Young De Wolf of Rhode 
Island, nephew of Col. Winthrop's, "an Arab 
sheik," wore probably the only genuine costume 
in the room — a flowing robe that was catching in 
every girl's coiffure, and every man's sword and 
spurs, in the dance. 

All the gilded youth who wanted boisterous fun, 
and no jury duty, were firemen, in those days of 
voluntary service. Philippe De la Chaise wore his 
uniform. He later married Victoria Gasquet, and 
was relegated to a "back number" shortly after. 

I make no special mention of the chaperons, but, 
9 117 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Creole like, they were present In force. Cuthbert 
Slocomb was a mousquetaire, and Augusta, in red 
and black, "Diablotan," a vision of beauty and 
grace. She married the Urquhart mentioned in 
"Musical History of Louisiana," as the father of 
Cora Urquhart Potter. Mr, Urquhart died years 
ago, but his widow survives. She lives with her 
daughter at Staines on the Thames, In a stone house 
that was a lodge of Windsor Castle in the time of 
Henry VIII. Cuthbert Slocomb married a Miss Day; 
his widow and daughter. Countess di Brazza, survive 
him. Ida Slocomb was the noted philanthropist of 
New Orleans, the widow of Dr. T. G. Richardson. 

There was the stately Mrs. Martin Gordon 
chaperoning her exceedingly pretty sister. Myrtle 
Bringier, who became the wife of Gen. Dick Taylor, 
and whose descendants are among the few of those 
mentioned above still living and reigning in New 
Orleans society. 

The mint building was made ample for the gay 
festivities by utilizing committee rooms, offices and 
every apartment that could be diverted for the 
crowd's comfort — so, we wandered about corridors 
and spacious rooms, but never beyond the touch of 
a gendarme — officers, soldiers, policemen at every 
step. These precautions gave a rather regal air to 
the whole affair. 

ii8 




Augusta Slocomb Urquhart 
Painted in Paris, in 1857 



FANCY DRESS BALL AT THE MINT IN 1850 

The belles retired to their boudoirs for a season, 
but the beaux had to go to business, and what a 
sight some of them were for a whole week after the 
fancy dress ball! They had hired costumes from 
members of the French opera troupe, and their faces 
were "made up" with rouge that could not be 
washed off; had to wear off in a purplish stain. 
My brother represented Louis XIV on that oc- 
casion, and I remember he scrubbed his cheeks until 
he made them almost raw. Of no avail. In time 
the pinkish, purplish tint gradually disappeared. 

Shortly after that grandest and most unique en- 
tertainment Mr. Joe Kennedy's term expired and 
he retired into private life. Beautiful Rose fell into 
a decline and died early. What fortunes befell that 
family I know not. They seem to have faded away. 
The Kennedys were a large family in those days, 
closely allied to the Pierce and Cenas families, all 
of which were socially prominent. And now their 
names are "writ in water." I should like to know 
how many of this old Creole society are living to- 
day! I was eighteen, one of the youngest of the 
group, in the fifties. 



XVII 

DR. CLAPP'S CHURCH 

IT Is quite sixty years since Dr. Clapp's church 
went up in smoke. It was as well known to the 
denizens and visitors of New Orleans, in its 
day, as Talmage's Tabernacle in Brooklyn some 
decades later was known far and wide. Dr. Clapp 
called it "The First Congregational Church of New 
Orleans." Others designated it as "Clapp's Church." 
It was, in reality, neither one nor the other, for it 
was not an organized congregation, and its build- 
ing was the property of an eccentric Jew. In a 
burst of admiration and generosity Judah Touro 
gave the church rent fjee to Dr. Clapp. The struc- 
ture had quite the appearance of a "Friends' Meet- 
ing House." It was of unpainted brick, entirely de- 
void of any ornamentation. The little steeple was 
only high enough and big enough to hold the in- 
evitable bell. One entered a narrow vestibule, with 
two doors leading into the body of the church, and 
two flights of stairs to respective galleries. It was 
further furnished with two conspicuous tin signs — 

I20 



DR. CLAPP'S CHURCH 

"Stranger's Gallery on the Right," "Gallery for 
Colored Persons on the Left." (Dr. Clapp came 
from Boston.) 

On entering the sanctuary one faced the organ 
loft, the pulpit being at the street end between the 
two doors. It was a little rounded affair, with, to 
all appearances, "standing room for one only." 
Back of it, to convey possibly an idea of space, and 
also to relieve the Intense white of the wall, was a 
wonderful drapery, very high and very narrow, of 
red serge, pleated, looped and convoluted In an 
amazing way. 

Dr. Clapp, a large, handsome, middle-aged man, 
In a clerical black silk robe, entered the pulpit from 
between the folds of that draped monstrosity. He 
was dignified and reverential, preached without 
notes, sometimes, but not always, using a Bible text. 
The music of that church was rated as very fine, the 
organ was the best In the city. (I wonder If old 
Judah Touro furnished that, too?) And Thomas 
Cripps, the organist, managed it, con amove. There 
must have been a choir to furnish the chorus, but I 
only call to mind Mrs. Renshaw and her sister. Miss 
White, who sang solos and duets. Their finely 
trained voices produced melody Itself. Mr. James 
I. Day, tall, and thin, and gaunt, with a hatchet face, 
who looked as If a squeak was his vocal limit, had 

121 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

a most powerful bass voice that filled the building 
and floated out onto the street. The last time I 
saw him he was in an open carriage with a red 
velvet cushion on his lap, on which reposed the key 
(as big as the famous Bastile key) of the city of 
New Orleans. He was receiving Rex in an initial 
Mardi Gras parade. That was years ago. 

To return to church, I don't recall any prayer 
books or hymnals, nor hearing any congregational 
singing. The choir, of course, was volunteer. 
We had yet to know a church singer could be 
salaried. There was no church organization, as 
we know it to-day, or even at that day. There were 
no officers, no deacons, no elders, far as I can think, 
for my father was a devoted communicant and 
constant attendant and naturally would have fitted 
into some church office, if there had been any. 

When Dr. Clapp announced the taking of a col- 
lection he cast his eye over the congregation and 
signaled from it those persons who were to "pass 
the plates." 

"Mr. Smith will take the center aisle, Mr. Jones 
the right aisle, Mr. Robinson the left aisle, Mr. 
Dick right gallery, Mr. Harry left gallery," where- 
upon Messrs. Smith, Jones and Robinson and 
Messrs. Dick and Harry would come forward, take 
their plates from a table under the high pulpit and 

122 



DR. CLAPP'S CHURCH 

proceed to their allotted tasks. Remembering this 
confirms me in the belief there were no officers of 
the church whose duty it would have been to dis- 
charge such services. 

There was only one service a week, a morning 
service and sermon on Sundays, no night meetings, 
as there was really no means of lighting the build- 
ing. No Bible class, no Sunday school, no prayer 
meeting, no missionary band, no church committee, 
no Donors' Society, no sewing circle, no donation 
party, no fairs, no organ recital, absolutely "no 
nothing," but Dr. Clapp and his weekly sermon. 
The church was always filled to its utmost capacity. 
I recall a host of pew holders whose names have 
passed into obhvion with their bodies. 

The old church stood on St. Charles Street, ad- 
jacent to the St. Charles Hotel, so when one build- 
ing went up in flames the other did, too. The Ve- 
randa Hotel, next in importance to its neighbor, 
was across the way, and from these sources always 
came strangers, more than enough to fill the gallery, 
when they were wafted up the stairs by the con- 
spicuous tin sign. 

Almost simultaneously with the destruction of 
the building, disappeared both Dr. Clapp and Mr. 
Touro from public notice. By the way, Mr. Judah 
Touro never had been inside the church, nor had 

123 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

he ever heard Dr. Clapp preach. Of course, they 
are both as dead now as the unique old church, so 
it matters not how, when or where they departed. 
The congregation dissolved as completely. Prob- 
ably not one member, old enough at the time to 
know what Dr. Clapp preached about or to be able 
to criticise his utterances, is living to-day. Dr. 
Clapp was a loyal citizen, a charitable, kindly man, 
one of the few who voluntarily remained in the city 
and ministered to the stricken and buried the dead 
in the fearful epidemics that ravaged the land every 
two or three years. His counsel reached the flotsam 
of a great city, and his teachings bore fruit. He is 
gone now where church organizations are not con- 
sidered, but the good works he wrought by his 
simple methods are placed to his credit. 



XVIII 

OLD DAGUERREOTYPES 

I THINK I can safely say I possess the first 
daguerreotype ever taken in New Orleans. 
An artist came there about 1840 and opened 
a studio (artist and studio sound rather grand when 
one views the work to-day). That studio was at 
the corner of Canal Street and Exchange Alley. 
The artist needed some pictures of well-known men 
for his showcase, so he applied to my father, who 
was of the "helping hand" variety. And dear Pa 
was rewarded with the gift of a picture of himself 
all done up in a velvet-lined case, which he brought 
home to the amazement and wonder of every mem- 
ber of the family, white and black. I look at it 
now with a grim smile. Dear Pa's cravat ends 
were pulled out and his coattail laid nicely over one 
leg, and his hand spread so that one could see he 
had five big fingers. His head had been steadied 
straight up in a most unnatural position, with a kind 
of callipers or steel braces, and he must have been 
told to "look up and smile" for a full minute. 

125 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

We prize that daguerreotype for its antiquity, 
but I hope seventy years hence when another and an- 
other generation opens my "war album" they will 
not laugh at the quaint cartes de visite it contains, 
though I confess some of them begin to look rather 
queer already. They were all gifts of near and 
dear friends, most of them with autograph attach- 
ments, some of which were so flourishing that I 
had to subscribe the names and dates on the backs. 

There are Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Davis, dated i860, 
before he was President, you perceive. Though I 
have letters from both, I never saw either after 
that date. There's Gen. J. Bankhead Magruder, in 
full uniform, far and away the most picturesque 
of my collection. The first time we ever met Gen. 
Magruder was very soon after the capture of the 
Harriet Lane in Galveston waters. The Texans 
were wild and jubilant at the dashing feat, and 
when we reached Houston, all travel-stained and 
worn out, the city was in a ferment of excitement. 

The General dearly loved to tell a good story, 
and the impediment in his speech, a drawling lisp, 
made him vastly amusing. In his office one day 
one of his aides was tinkling a banjo. A travel- 
stained individual called: 

"Is the General in?" 

"No," tinkle, tinkle. 

126 



OLD DAGUERREOTYPES 

"When will he be in?" 

"Don't know," tinkle, tinkle. 

"Will you tell him I called?" 

"What name?" tinkle, tinkle. 

"Smith." 

"I think I have heard that name before," tinkle, 
tinkle. "What Smith?" 

"Gen. E. Kirby Smith, young man!" 

No tinkle followed that reply. The young aide 
almost swooned away. Gen. Magruder surrounded 
himself with Virginia gentlemen aides, who gave 
him infinite trouble, he said. 

In the early fifties "we met by chance, the usual 
way," Major F. Ducayet. A party driving down 
the old Bayou road one Sunday heard that at 
Ducayet's there would be found a rare collection of 
wonderful fowls and poultry, and the owner was 
very gracious about showing his assortment to 
visitors. After a bit of hesitation we ventured to 
Introduce ourselves. Mr. Ducayet received us most 
hospitably, showed us through his lovely grounds 
and gave us the history of his rarest feathered pets, 
presented the two ladies with choice bouquets and 
Insisted upon our partaking of refreshments. Dur- 
ing the conversation that ensued Mr. Ducayet said 
he would not be able to increase his fancy flock, all 
of which had been brought him from foreign parts 

127 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

by captains and sailors, as a change in the adminis- 
tration would remove him from the position in the 
Custom House he had held for years. One of the" 
party at once asked him to call on him at the St. 
Charles Hotel the following day, that he, being a 
Democrat and a politician of influence, might exert 
himself in his behalf. Mr. Ducayet retained his 
position. From that chance acquaintance sprung a 
strong friendship. We saw much of Major Duca- 
yet in war times, hence the little carte de visite 
which ornaments my war album. 

By the side of Major Ducayet's is the face of 
ex-Governor Moore of Louisiana. He was an in- 
mate of our modest little home in Texas during the 
expiring days of the Confederacy. 

I have also similar small photos of Major Tom 
Lee, General Preston, General Breckinridge, Com- 
modore John N. Mafl'it, General and Mrs. Robert 
Toombs, General Early, Dr. Howard Smith and a 
host of lesser lights, all of which were taken in 
Havana after the war. 

Dr. Howard Smith of New Orleans was surgeon 
on somebody's (perhaps Gen. Kirby Smith's) staff, 
and was our frequent guest in Texas, a very valu- 
able guest, too, for his skill carried some members 
of my family out of the "valley of the shadow" 
into the sunshine. One trip we made together from 

128 



OLD DAGUERREOTYPES 

the Rio Grande into the interior of Texas, quite a 
caravan of us in the party. 

The first day out from Laredo there was a terri-' 
ble sandstorm, cold almost to freezing point, and 
never was a more disgusted party of travelers. In 
a fit of despair Dr. Smith exclaimed: "I would give 
a thousand dollars for a drink of brandy." Now 
brandy was a luxury a thousand dollars could not 
always supply, but I promptly replied: "I will give 
you a whole bottle of brandy, the cork of which 
has not been drawn, if you will divide it with the 
rest of the crowd." Of course, the proposition was 
accepted. From my carpetbag I produced a tiny 
toy bottle, holding perhaps a half wine glass of the 
coveted liquor. It was not easy to divide the con- 
tents liberally, but the genial doctor appreciated the 
joke and did his utmost to carry out its provisions. 

Years after, walking uptown in New Orleans, my 
escort said: "Look at the man on that gallery. See 
if you know him," I met the man's eyes full in my 
face, and passed on. It was Dr. Howard Smith, 
neither of us recognizing the other. He was in ill- 
health, old and haggard, and I guess I showed some 
of time's footprints, too. 



\ 



XIX 

STEAMBOAT AND STAGE SEVENTY YEARS AGO 

IN the twilight of my days, seated in my favorite 
chair, I rock away many a trip from my New 
Orleans home to the blue grass region of my 
ancestors. Dream trips they are, but dreams of 
real trips in the old days when steamboats and 
stages were the approved, In fact, the only, transpor- 
tation for travelers. 

About the Fourth of July every year our family 
migrated to the old Kentucky homestead. The 
Fourth was not chosen with any patriotic motive, 
but law courts were closed and legal business sus- 
pended, and my father's vacation at hand at that 
date. Though the steamboats were called palatial, 
viewed from my rocking-chair trip to-day I wonder 
how people managed to stand the inconveniences and 
discomforts they provided. 

There was the famed Grey Eagle, "a No. i float- 
ing palace" it was called. There was the Belle of 
the West and the Fashion and the Henry Clay. One 
time and another we churned up the muddy Missis- 

130 



STEAMBOAT AND STAGE 

sippi water in every one of them. Naturally the 
boats catered in every way to the predilections of 
the plantation owners, who were their main source 
of profit. The picture of Arlington which illus- 
trates this book was originally made to decorate a 
state-room door on a fine new river boat built in the 
'50's and adorned in that way with views of homes 
along the river. 




Steamboat on the Mississippi. 

(From "Forty Etchings, from Sketches Made with the 
Camera Lucida in North America in 1827 and 1828," bv Captain 
Basil Hall, R. N.) 

Grey Eagle was the finest and best, and therefore 
most popular boat. I recall with amusement an 
eight or ten days' trip on that palace. The cabins 
were divided by curtains, drawn at night for pri- 
vacy. The ladies' cabin, at the stern, was equipped 
with ten or twelve small staterooms. The gentle- 
men's cabin stretched on down to the ofiicers' quar- 

131 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

ters, bar, barber shop, pantries, etc., ending in what 
was called Social Hall, where the men sat about, 
smoking and chewing (the latter as common a habit 
as cigarette smoking is now) and talking — in other 
words, making themseh'es sociable. 

On that same Grey Eagle I was for the first time 
promoted to the upper berth, in a stateroom shared 
by an older sister. The berth was so narrow that 
in attempting to turn over I fell out and landed in 
the wash basin, on the opposite side of the room! 
My sister had to sit on the lower berth to braid my 
pigtails, then sent me forth so she could have room 
to braid her own. Trunks and other baggage more 
unwieldy than carpetbags were piled up in the 
vicinity of Social Hall. A carpetbag, small enough 
to be easily handled, was all there was room for in 
the stateroom. There were no valises, suitcases or 
steamer trunks in those days of little travel, and 
unless you are three-quarters of a century old you 
can't Imagine a more unwieldy article than a carpet- 
bag of seventy years ago. Only toilet articles and 
things that could not muss and tumble could be 
safely stored in one. 

In the stateroom, where we had to sleep and dress, 
and, if we could snatch a chance, take an afternoon 
nap, there was a corner shelf for a basin and pitcher 
and one chair; two doors, one leading out and the 

132 



STEAMBOAT AND STAGE 

other leading in, transoms over each for light and 
ventilation — and there you are for over a week. 
The cabin was lighted with swinging whale-oil lamps, 
and one could light his stateroom if one had thought 
to provide a candle. 

Every family traveled with a man servant, 
whose business it was to be constantly at beck 
and call. Of course, there was always a col- 
ored chambermaid, and, equally of course, she 
frisked around and seemed to have very little re- 
sponsibility — no bells, no means of summoning her 
from her little nodding naps if she happened to be 
beyond the sound of one's voice. The man servant's 
duties, therefore, were almost incessant. If an 
article was needed from the trunks he was sent to 
the baggage pile for it, and often he brought trunk 
trays to the staterooms. When the boat stopped 
"to wood" every man servant rushed to the wood- 
man's cabin to get eggs, chickens, milk, what not. 

And those men had the privilege of the kitchen to 
prepare private dishes for their white folks. I won- 
der how long a boat or hotel would stand that kind 
of management to-day; but in the days where my 
rocking-chair is transporting me, steamboat fare was 
not up to the standard of any self-respecting pater 
fam'iUas. There was no ice chest, no cold storage; 
in a word, no way of preserving fresh foods for 
10 133 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

any length of time, so passengers resorted to such 
means as presented themselves for their own bodily 
comfort. Those who had not the necessary ap- 
pendage — a man servant — foraged for themselves, 
but the experienced and trusted servant, to use a 
vulgarism, "was never left." 

The table for meals extended the length of the 
gentlemen's cabin, stretched out and out to its utmost 
length, if need be, so that every passenger had a 
seat. There was no second table, no second-class 
passengers — anybody was the equal of anybody else. 
If you could not possibly be that, you could find 
accommodation on the lower deck and eat from a 
tin plate. 

It was quite customary, as I have mentioned, for 
passengers to have private dishes, prepared by their 
own servants. I recall with a smile, on one oc- 
casion, a very respectable-looking stranger boarded 
our boat at Helena or some such place. At dinner 
he reached for a bottle of wine. Cuthbert Bullitt 
touched the bottle with a fork, saying, "Private 
wine." The man, with a bow, withdrew his hand. 
Presently he reached for a dish of eggs. My father 
said, "Excuse me, private." There was something 
else he reached for, I forget what, and another 
fellow-passenger touched the dish and said "Pri- 
vate." Presently dessert was served, and a fine, 

134 



STEAMBOAT AND STAGE 

large pie happened to be placed in front of the 
Helena man. He promptly stuck his fork into it. 
"By gracious! this is a private pie." There was a 
roar of laughter. 

After dinner the others, finding him delightfully 
congenial and entertaining, fraternized with him to 
the extent of a few games at cards. He was won- 
derfully lucky. He left the boat at an obscure 
river town during the night, and the next day 
our captain said he was a notorious gambler. 
From his capers at table the captain saw he was 
planning a way of winning attention to himself, 
therefore under cover of darkness he had been put 
ashore. My father, who did not play, was vastly 
amused when he found the smart gambler had car- 
ried off all the spare cash of those who had enjoyed 
the innocent sport. 

Flatboats floating all manner of freight down 
stream were a common sight on the river. Arrived 
at their destination, the boats, which were only huge 
rafts with no propelling power, were broken up 
and sold for lumber, and the boatmen traveled back 
up stream in packets to repeat the process. Cousin 
Eliza Patrick used to relate the trip her family 
made in about 1820 on a flatboat from Kentucky 
to Louisiana. The widowed mother wished to re- 
join a son practicing medicine in the latter state, so 

135 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

she sold her land, and loaded her family and every 
movable object she possessed — slaves, cattle, farm 
implements, household effects — upon a huge "flat" 
and they floated by day and tied up to the bank 
by night, carrying on, during the weeks consumed 
by the trip, an existence which must have been 
somewhat like that of Noah's family in the Ark. 

There was not, as I have mentioned, any means 
of keeping foods fresh, nor was there even ice 
water to be had on those boats. We used entirely, 
even for drinking, the muddy river water, which 
was hauled up in buckets on the barber side of the 
boat, while the steward was emptying refuse to the 
fishes on the pantry side. The passengers became 
more or less intimate, necessarily, on a trip such as 
I am attempting to describe. There was no place 
to sit but in the general cabin, the sleeping rooms 
being so cramped. There was no library, very little 
reading, but much fancy work, mostly on canvas, 
footstools and bell-pulls. A bell-pull, you may want 
to know, was a long band about three inches wide; it 
was hung from the parlor cornice and connected 
with a bell in the servant's region; it was quite the 
style to embroider them in gay vines and flower 
designs. 

The elderly ladies knit fine thread nightcaps, col- 
lars and lace. Really some of the "old lady" work 

136 



STEAIMBOAT AND STAGE 

was quite handsome. Thus fingers were kept busy, 
while gossip and interchange of bread and cake 
recipes entertained the housewives who had never 
heard of cooking schools and domestic science. Our 
trip necessarily embraced at least one Sunday. I 
remember my father had a dear old relative of the 




American Stagecoach. 

(From "Forty Etchings, from Sketches Made with the Camera 
Lucida in North America in 1827 and 1828," by Captain Basil 
Hall, R. N.) 

deepest dyed Presbyterian type (father of the late 
Dr. T. G. Richardson), who always on his river 
trips landed wherever he happened to be on Satur- 
day and on Monday boarded another boat (if one 
came along), his scruples forbidding Sunday travel. 
Arrived at the end of our river journey, father 
chartered a whole stage to take his family a two 

137 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

days' trip into the heart of the blue grass region. 
Nine passengers filled the interior of the coach, 
and four or five, if need be, could ride on top. The 
rumble (we always called it boot) was filled with 
baggage. The vehicle had no springs, but was 
swung on braces, which gave it a kind of swaying 
motion that always made me sick. However, we 
managed to start off in fine style, but every time 
there was a stop to change horses all of us 
alighted, stiff and tired and hot, to "stretch our 
legs," like Squeers in Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby." 
At noon we rejoiced to hear our coachman's horn, 
a grand, loud blast, followed by toot, toot! — one 
toot for each passenger, so the tavern man would 
know how many plates to lay, and his wife how 
many biscuits and chicken legs to have ready. We 
always made out to spend the one night of the jour- 
ney at Weissiger's tavern in Frankfort, the best 
tavern in all the land. We had a leisurely breakfast 
the following morning and were refreshed in body 
and soul for the last lap of our journey. 

Late afternoon the stage winds up a hill, and in a 
woods pasture and surrounded by blue grass mead- 
ows the gable end of a red brick house can be 
seen. My dear, tired mother puts her head out 
of the window, "Driver, blow your horn." A great 
blast sounds over the waving grass and blossom- 

138 



STEAMBOAT AND STAGE 

ing fields, and we know that they know we are com- 
ing. Tired as the horses are after the long, hard 
pull; tired as the coachman must be, he cracks his 
whip, and we gallop up the shady lane to the dear 
old door as briskly as though we were fresh from 
the stable. Long before we are fully there, and the 
steps of the nine-passenger coach can be lowered; 
long before the boys can jump off the top, a host 
of dear faces, both white and black, is assembled 
to greet us. As a little child I always wondered 
why it was, when the occasion was so joyful, and 
all of us tumbled from that stage so beaming and 
happy, that as my aunt folded my mother in her 
arms, they both wept such copious tears. Now I 
know. 



XX 

HOTEL AT PASS CHRISTIAN IN 1 849 

IF there is a more restful spot on earth than a 
comfortable rocking-chair on a deep veranda, 
with a nearby view of the dancing waters of the 
gulf through a grove of tall pines, commend me to 
it. A whole month on the west coast of Florida, all 
sand underfoot, pines and oaks overhead, is ideal 
for fagged-out, tired-out, frayed-out humanity from 
busy cities. This is not an advertisement, so I do 
not propose to tell where six people from six dif- 
ferent and widely separated parts of the country 
last year dropped down from the skies, as it were, 
upon just such a delightful straight mile of gulf 
coast. 

One halts at a "turpentine depot" and takes 
a queer little tram to the Gulf, seven miles away. 
Tram is hauled over wooden rails by two tired nags 
whose motions suggest the lazy air of the pines. It 
is loaded with the baggage — crates of hunting dogs 
— (fine hunting abounds), the mail bag, some mis- 
cellaneous freight and finally the passengers. 

140 



HOTEL AT PASS CHRISTIAN IN 1849 

The country hotel is pine; ceilings, floors, walls 
are pine, the home-made and built-in furniture is 
pine; a big fire, roaring in the open fireplace if the 
day is chilly, is also made of pine — the rich, red 
Florida pine, ever so much richer in color and in 
turpentine than the boasted Georgia article. With 
the fish swimming in front of this hotel and the birds 
flying behind, and rabbits running in both directions, 
it goes without saying the table is above the 
average. 

Here on the broad verandas, as we rock and 
dream the lazy days away, visions visit me of 
the old hotel at Pass Christian in the forties. The 
oaks and three China trees in front of the veranda, 
and the view of the near-by waters, the whistle of 
mocking-birds among the china berries (thank heav- 
en ! sparrows have not found this Elysium) lend 
additional force to the semblance. One old lady, 
who hunts not, neither does she fish, rocks on the 
sunny veranda and dreams, as is the wont of those 
who have lived beyond their day and generation. 
She brings forth from a long-forgotten corner of 
memory's closet a picture covered with the dust of 
years, and lovingly brushes away the dimness, when 
behold ! old Pass Christian, dear old Pass Chris- 
tian, before the day of railroads and summer cot- 
tages, before the day of 6 o'clock dinners and trail- 

141 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

ing skirts, of cotillion favors and abbreviated 
bathing suits. 

The old hotel was built with a wing or extension 
at each end, which formed with the main building 
three sides of a square. There was no attempt at 
landscape gardening; not even a rosebush or an ole- 
ander decorated the little court. No plaster ApoUos 
and Dianas such as were seen peeping about the 
shrubbery of the various cottages (like the De 
Blancs' and Ducayets') that dotted in those days 
the old bayou road, and were considered so very 
decorative, but plain sand and scrub such as 
meet my eye to-day on this little frequented 
part of the Florida Gulf Coast. There was no 
beach driving or riding of gay people then — none 
here now. 

I fly back to the summer of '49, and live again 
with the young girls who made life one long sum- 
mer's day. We walked the pier, the image of one 
before my eyes now, to the bath-houses in muslin 
dresses. Bathing suits were hideous, unsightly gar- 
ments, high neck, long sleeves, long skirts, intended 
for water only! The young girls returned under 
parasols and veils. How decorous ! No haigneuse 
decoUetce to be seen on the beach. Our amuse- 
ments were simple and distinctly ladylike. There 
was no golf or tennis, not even the innocent croquet, 

142 



HOTEL AT PASS CHRISTIAN IN 1849 

to tempt the demoiselles to athletics, so they drifted 
more to the "Lydia Languish" style. 

There was no lack of beaux who came, more than 
enough to "go round," by the Saturday boats, in 
time for the weekly hop — danced all Saturday night 
and returned to weekly drudge (as they called it) 
in the city. The bonbons and flowers they brought 
vanished and faded long before the little boat with 
its freight of waving hats and handkerchiefs faded 
in the twilight of a summer Sunday. 

Also there come to my dream two dainty Good- 
man sisters, wonderful and most accommodating 
musicians they were. One was already affianced to 
her cousin, George Nathan. He was a prosperous 
business man at that time. I doubt if even his name 
is known among his thrifty race in New Orleans 
to-day. He carried off his accomplished wife to 
Rio Janeiro, and made his home in that country, 
which was as far away to us then, as the North Pole 
is to-day. The younger sister met that summer at 
the Pass and eventually married E. C. Wharton, an 
attache of the Picayune, whose articles were signed 
"Easy Doubleyou." He was soon dancing attend- 
ance on the pretty, curly haired girl. I remember 
how he wandered around with pad and pencil, and 
we girls were horribly afraid of being put in the 
Picayune. No reason for fear, as it was before the 

143 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

dawn of the society page and personal column. The 
Whartons drifted to Texas during the war, and at 
Houston they found already a host of stranded 
Louisianians; but "Easy Doubleyou" had a govern- 
ment appointment of some kind. The rest of us 
were simply runaways. 

There, too, was Dick Taylor, propelled in a 
wheel chair over that hotel veranda, an interesting 
convalescent from severe illness, or perhaps a 
wound, I do not recall which, his valet so constant 
in attendance that we wondered how the young man 
ever got an opportunity to whisper sweet nothings 
into the ear of lovely Myrtle Bringier — but he did! 
And that was the fourth engagement of the season 
that culminated in marriage, which signalizes the 
superior advantages of a hotel veranda, and most 
especially that of dear old Pass Christian. Dick 
Taylor had a magnetic personality, which over- 
shadowed the fact (to paraphrase a Bible text) he 
was the only son of his father, and he the President. 

In New York some years ago "The Little Church 
Around the Corner," still garnished with its wealth 
of Easter lilies and fragrant with spring bloom, 
threw wide its portals for the last obsequies of this 
loved and honored Confederate general. In that 
throng of mourners was one who had known him 
in his early manhood on the veranda of that old 

144 



HOTEL AT PASS CHRISTIAN IN 1849 

Pass Christian hotel, and whose heart had followed 
his career with ever-increasing admiration and vene- 
ration even unto the end. I lay aside my old picture 
forever. Alas! it remains "only a dream at the 
best, but so sweet that I ask for no more." 



XXI 

OLD MUSIC BOOKS 

I WONDER how many old ladies start to go 
through an unused hall closet, to make room 
for an accumulation of pasteboard boxes too 
good to throw away, and hampers too strong to dis- 
card, and in that long-closed closet, which a junk 
man with push-cart is waiting to help clear out, find 
a treasure, long since buried under piles of trash, 
mourned for, and, as in the case of many departed 
things, at length given up for lost — then forgotten. 
In just such a dark closet, from beneath a pile of old 
magazines (what they were kept and stored for 
goodness knows) and crazy bits of bric-a-brac, that 
nobody but a junk man (not even Salvation Army 
men, who are getting to be mighty choosy, by the 
way) would cart off, I found two bruised music 
books. 

One dated back to 1847, when I was a 
schoolgirl in New Haven, and played with great 
eclat "La Fete au Convent" quadrilles, purchased of 
Skinner & Co., Chapel Street. Chapel Street still 

146 



OLD MUSIC BOOKS 

exists, but Skinner & Co. are buried in the dust of 
more than sixty years. I cannot play "La Fete au 
Couvent" or any other fete now, but I can close 
my eyes and see the lovely young girls in the school 
music room whirling away to the music of the inspir- 
ing cotillion. Alas! Alas! Time has whirled 
every one of them away and stiffened the nimble 
fingers that danced so merrily over the keys. 

In those far away days that are as yesterday to my 
dreaming there were "Variations" of every familiar 
melody. Variations that started with the simple air 
and branched off into all sorts of fantastic and in- 
volved and intricate paths. "Oft in the Stilly 
Night," " 'Tis Midnight Hour," "Twilight Dews," 
"Low-Back'd Car," "The Harp That Once Thro' 
Tara's Halls," "Oh, Cast That Shadow From Thy 
Brow," and so on and on, whole pages of "Varia- 
tions," now dim with age, but every blessed note 
brings to me the faces and voices of those long 
stilled in death. One sweet young girl played "The 
Harp That Once Thro' Tara's Halls" and " 'Tis 
Midnight Hour" so charmingly that my eyes were 
dimmed when I turned the leaves of the school-day 
music book, for her fate was saddest of all — an in- 
mate for years of an insane asylum. Another who 
sang as she played the "Low-Back'd Car" so delight- 
fully (she was half Irish) died suddenly of yellow 

147 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

fever. Still another associated with "Oh, Cast That 
Shadow From Thy Brow," played the melody on a 
guitar, accompanied by her sweet young voice. 
Alas! She, too, is gone where they play on harps 
and there are no shadowed brows. So, on and on 
to the bitter end, and with a sigh I close the first 
chapter of my musical reminiscences that have lain 
dormant so many, many years. 

The fashion of dedicating bits of music to some 
well-known person — need not be a musician, either, 
but a body of some note — has passed away with the 
one-button glove and the green barege veil of sixty 
years ago. In the '50s it was quite common, and 
my dear music book of that date holds ever so many 
dedicated polkas and mazourkas. The very front 
leaf has a picture of a wonderfully crocheted kind 
of a serpent with a man's head, rather a shocking 
thing, "Sea Serpent Polka," dedicated to Miss Rose 
Kennedy, by M. Strakosch. Dear Rose used to play 
it for us. It was not an inspiring bit of music, but 
her wonderfully deft touch would make melody out 
of anything that had crochets and quavers in it. 

There is, a few pages further, another dedication 
to the incomparable Rose, "Grande Polka de Con- 
cert," by Wallace. Miss Lou Gross, a most accom- 
plished musician, daughter of the noted surgeon. Dr. 
Samuel Gross, was honored by Strakosch in the 

148 



OLD MUSIC BOOKS 

"Kossuth Galop," a galloping thing, much in the 
Strakosch style, which predominated in those days. 
Strakosch believed in a grand "send off" of his in- 
numerable productions. There's "Carnival de 
Paris," dedicated to Mme. Caroline Arpin (I did 
not know of her) and "Flirtation Polka," to Mme. 
Lavillebeuvre, who was a delightful pianist and 
merited something more inspiring than that "Flir- 
tation." 

Then Wallace dances on the pages with a 
"Polka" adorned with the name of Mile. Du- 
milatre, and Ed Armant dedicates "La Rose Polka" 
to Miss Augusta Slocomb. I don't think Armant 
wrote music; he "got it done," as the saying is. 
That was not an unusual feat; a valse was dedicated 
to Miss Philomene Briant, by George McCausland, 
and he was ignorant of a note in music — he "got it 
done." P. A. Frigerio honored Miss Sara Byrne 
by the dedication of "La Chasse Polka." Miss 
Sara was a decided belle in the '50s, so a bit of music 
with her name attached found rapid disposal. Also, 
a belle of the '50s was Miss Estelle Tricou. Leh- 
man, chef d'orchestre at the opera house, wrote 
"Souvenir de Paris" in her honor. Miss Estelle 
was bright and sparkling and beautiful, so was much 
in evidence. George W. Christy wrote more than 
one of his "starry" verses to "E. T.," and they were 
11 149 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

printed in the Picayune. George was not noted for 
self-effacement and modesty. His signature always 
appeared in full to his sentimental effusions. 

Lehman dedicated his "Clochettes Polka Ma- 
zourka," a fine, inspiring bit of dance music it was, 
too, to Mme. Odile Ferrier, and "La Valentine 
Polka," another charming, catchy dance piece, to 
Miss Anais Boudousquie. There was Mme. Ange- 
lina, a new French importation, whose specialty was 
the new dances that nobody else could teach. She 
was immortalized by "L'Esmeralda Xouvelle Danse 
de Salon." We pupils had to learn some new steps 
and flourishes to be able to make successful debut, 
after All Saints' Day, for it was decreed "L'Esme- 
ralda" was to be most popular. Everybody, even 
some stout old ladies that did not mean to be rele- 
gated to back seats, and passe beaux who were fast 
becoming clumsy and awfully hard to dance with, 
took dancing lessons on the sly of Mme. Angelina, 
not to mention the young girls, debutantes and such, 
that went in small Installments to her tiny room in 
Royal Street 

After this seeming digression I turn a leaf in the 
old music book to dedications to Mme. Boyer, 
"Mazourka Sentimentale," by the fertile Stra- 
kosch, and here, too, "La Valse Autrichenne" by 
a new name — E. Johns. Mme. Boyer was the 

150 



OLD MUSIC BOOKS 

fashionable teacher of music. Both these dedicated 
pieces we scholars had to learn, and both bits, be- 
sides a dozen other bits a thousand times more dif- 
ficult and intricate, like Gottschalk's "Bamboula," 
for instance, are so spotted with black pencil marks 
they are a sight! For the madame did not make a 
suggestion as to technique or expression or any- 
thing else in the musical mind that was not em- 
phasized by a pencil mark on the page. 

I find that most of this music was published by 
Mayo, No. 5 Camp Street; by Lyler & Hewitt, 39 
Camp Street. Lehman published his own work at 
194 St. Anne Street. ... I am not half through, 
but I am weary of looking over these old music 
books. So many memories cluster about every page 
— memories of lovely dances with delightful part- 
ners. Oh ! That grand valse a cinq temps, the music 
of which was never printed, and no band but Leh- 
man's band could play it, and nobody taught the 
whirling steps but Mme. Angelina. Memories of 
sweet girls, now old and faded, or, better than that, 
listening to the "Music of the Spheres." Memories 
of painstaking professors whose pencil marks are all 
that is left to bring forcibly to mind their patient 
personality. I turn the last leaf, and lo ! here is a 
unique bit of music and information — "The Monte- 
rey Waltz," by Eugene Wythe Dawson, a little 

151 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Texas boy, who dedicates it to the Httle musicians of 
his own age (eight years) in the sister States! I do 
not remember anyone who essayed to render the 
"Monterey Waltz" — I never did — but Eugene 
Dawson was still playing the piano in Texas during 
the war, proving possibly our grandfather's dictum, 
"A man who plays the piano is mighty little account 
for anything else." 

We don't think so now. I would be glad for a 
musician, male or female, in this house to render for 
me the sweet musical numbers that once made my 
young heart bound. 



XXII 

THE SONGS OF LONG AGO 

HOW the ballads of our youth are, in mem- 
ory, merged into the personality of those 
who sang them ! How, as we recall the 
simple rhymes, the sweet voices of departed friends 
clothe them in melody. The songs of my early 
years come to me to-day with more freshness than 
the songs I heard yesterday, and with them come 
more vividly to mind the voices and faces of those 
long-gone friends than come the faces of those of 
to-day. 

How many of us can recall "Blue-eyed Mary"? 
the little ballad with which my mother always 
quieted me to rest. The pitiful little song! And 
in my childhood days, too, mammy rocked me 
to sleep with "Ole Grimes is daid, dat good ole 
man." I never hear "Blue-eyed Mary" or "Old 
Grimes" now, nor have I for more than threescore 
years and ten, they are both so buried in oblivion, 
though I can repeat every word of each, they were 
so nestled and rocked into my baby life. 

153 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

When my father's home was on Customhouse 
Street Duncan Hennen Hved directly opposite. Mrs. 
Hennen was a dashing beauty. She had a sister 
from Tennessee visiting her, who had a powerful 
voice, and she sang "Old Rosin the Beau" and "Life 
on the Ocean Wave" with all the abandon of a pro- 
fessional. My father admired her style prodig- 
iously, but my mother thought it too robust. "The 
Carrier Dove — fly away to my native land, sweet 
dove," and "Twilight Dews," she pronounced more 
ladylike. (How often we used that word "lady- 
like." We rarely hear it now.) I must have been 
a very small "little girl" when I heard Wallace, in 
concert, sing "The Old Arm Chair." No one since 
Wallace ever sung that touching, homely ballad so 
beautifully. Once having heard his sympathetic 
rendering, one always associates the song with Wil- 
liam Wallace. 

I think it has been full sixty years since that song 
and "Farewell to Tom Moore," by Byron, have 
been heard. And "Twilight Dews," oh, my! and 
"Shells of the Ocean" — "One summer's day in pen- 
sive thought," etc. Young girls played their accom- 
paniments and tossed their ringlets and sang those 
ditties to enraptured swains, who often stood back 
of them, holding the candle at the proper angle and 
turning the leaves ! How It all comes back to this 

154 



THE SONGS OF LONG AGO 

dreaming old lady, who never sang, but who dearly 
lov^ed to listen to her more gifted friends 

In the Cajin settlement on the border of which I 
occasionally visited there was a family of Lafitons — 
I boldly give the name, for the two sons, Lafiton 
pis and Pete, never married, and all the family died 
years and years ago, but there was a lovely sprig of 
a girl, Amenaide, who possessed a fine voice and 
no doubt would have made her mark if she had had 
the necessary training, but she was one of the flow- 
ers "born to blush unseen." I don't think she knew 
one note of music. Of course, a guitar, much more 
a piano, was beyond her reach. She sang the sweet 
old French melody, "Fleuve du Tage," delightfully. 
I wonder now where she ever heard it. For years 
. after when I heard the song Amenaide rose be- 
fore me, and with her the impression that she was 
not equaled. 

There was another touching little ballad, in the 
days that were, "We Have Been Friends Together," 
and that tender "Good-by," who ever sings them 
now? Nobody, unless it be some old lady with 
quavering voice, Avho sings them in her heart while 
she dreams of the sweet girls of "Long, long ago" 
who have vanished. 

"I Cannot Sing the Old Songs," and "When Stars 
Are in the Quiet Skies" were two of the songs we 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

loved to hear in the days before "Dixie" and "The 
Volunteer" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" captured 
the voices of so many of our sweet singers. 

Some of us remember Mollie Haynes, who be- 
came the wife of Col. Charles D. Dreux, and none 
can recall her charming personality without a 
thought of the superb voice she possessed. "Ave 
Maria, Ora Pro Nobis" — none that I knew could 
render that prayerful melody with the pathos of 
Mollie Dreux. We all remember that Col. Dreux 
was the first Confederate officer from Louisiana 
who fell in battle, and no subsequent funeral was 
more largely attended than was Charles Dreux's. 
"Joys That We've Tasted" brings to mind a popular 
singer In the "Long Time Ago," Mrs. George D. 
Prentice, of Kentucky. How the names and the very 
people come thronging my mind as I recall these 
old melodies in which they are associated. 

A few years since, listening to the well-trained 
voice of a professional, as she rendered some intri- 
cate, superlative kind of music, that did not In the 
least appeal to me, I ventured to ask if she would 
favor us with "Ben Bolt." She graciously consented. 
And she rendered that simple old ballad that every 
child whistled or hummed when I was a child, with 
so many trills and bravuras, and I don't know what 
else in the vocal line, that I was lost in amazement. 

156 



THE SONGS OF LONG AGO 

Svengall himself could not have Idealized to the 
same extent. Poor "Sweet Alice" was burled under 
such an avalanche of sound that one could not recog- 
nize the "corner, obscure and alone," where she 
was supposed to rest under a "slab of granite so 
gray." 

So, perhaps, In the march of Improvement, 
where none sing unless they possess a voice that 
would electrify a whole opera house audience. It Is 
well the dear old songs of long ago are not resur- 
rected and amplified to suit the tastes and require- 
ments of to-day. I recall though, with a thrill of 
tender memory, hearing Jenny LInd sing "Home, 
Sweet Home" — just the simple ballad — without a 
single flourish when she was In New Orleans In 
1 85 1. I was In deep mourning and did not dream 
I would have the pleasure of hearing her, but a 
friend secured a loge grillee, and Insisted upon my 
going, accompanied by my brother. It was all 
arranged so courteously and so sympathetically and 
so kindly that I could not refuse, and thus I heard 
that Incomparable artist sing "Home, Sweet Home." 

No longer can mother sit in her "old arm chair" 
waving a turkey tail fan warm summer evenings, 
and be comforted and soothed by sweet warbllngs 
of her girls at the piano. No longer can the tired 
father call for his favorite, "Oh! Would I Were a 

157 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Boy Again," or "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," or 
Mrs. Hemans' "Bring Flowers, Fresh Flowers," 
the sweet old flowers that all girls were singing 
sixty years ago. The old mothers and fathers, the 
bright young daughters are scarce buried more 
deeply or mourned more deeply than are the songs 
of long ago. 



XXIII 

A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

IN the days of which I write New Orleans bore 
a very different aspect from the present, and 
it may be well for me to take my readers on a 
gossipy ramble through the thoroughfares which I 
so often traverse nowadays in my thoughts. 

Canal Street in the early forties was, par ex- 
cellence, a resident street. From Camp and Char- 
tres Streets, way back as far as sidewalks were 
flagged or bricked, which was only a few 
blocks. Canal Street was lined with homes, side 
by side, often without even an alley to sepa- 
rate them, as though land was scarce and one 
need economize space, whereas just beyond was land 
in plenty, but no sidewalks or easy approaches to 
speak of. From Camp Street to the levee were as 
I remember, large wholesale business houses, con- 
venient to the shoppers of large supplies, who ar- 
rived at regular intervals from their plantations on 
Belle Creole, or some other coast packet, frequently 
retained their quarters on the boat the short time it 

159 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

was in port, and so monsieur and madame could ac- 
complish their necessary shopping, untrammeled by 
the elegancies and inconvenient hours of a hotel. 




Things were conducted on a very liberal basis in 
those days. I have a liking for that old way — it 
was so debonair and generous, putting the captain 
on the same social standing as his guests. 

On the lower side of Canal Street, about where 
Holmes' store now stands, were more homes, in a 
row, all the houses exactly alike, with narrow, bal- 
conies stretching clear across the fronts, in a most 
confidentially neighborly way. The lower floors 
were doctors' or lawyers' offices or exchange brok- 
ers'. Fancy goods, dry goods, retail shops, in fact of 

1 60 



A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

every kind, were on Chartres or Royal Street; none 
on Canal. R. W. Montgomery had his home also 
on that fashionable thoroughfare. 

Christ Church was on the corner of Baronne and 
Canal, and Dr. Laycock was the pastor at the date 
of which I write, and, with few exceptions, all these 
families were of his flock. 

Lower Camp Street was occupied mostly by ex- 
change brokers' and such offices. The Sun Mutual 
Insurance Company had a conspicuous sign on a 
modest two-story brick building which any insurance 
structure to-day would put to shame. 

If it is near Christmas time, when we are taking 
this gossipy ramble, we might meet a flock of turkeys 
marching up Camp Street, guided by a man and 
boys with long poles. In those days fowls were 
not offered for sale ready dressed or plucked, but 
sold "on the hoof," as we say of cattle. Camp and 
the adjacent resident streets were, to use another 
Westernism, a favorite "turkey trot." Those 
turkeys may have trotted miles. Goodness knows 
whence they took up the line of march — presumably 
at some boat landing — but they were docile as lambs 
and in good condition. No roast turkey gobbler, 
or, better still, boiled turkey hen with oyster dress- 
ing, tastes now like the ones mother had on her 
table when I was a child and clamored for the drum- 

i6i 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

stick. What does taste as good to us old folks 
to-day? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! .... 

In Exchange Alley (it may have a new name now, 
since Triton Walk and Customhouse Street and 
others of the old days have been rechristened) my 
father and a number of other "attorneys at law," 
as their signs indicated, had offices. Mr. Wharton 
was one, and I also recall two Hebrew beaux of 
that date who were neighbors of my father's, A. K. 
Josephs and M. M. Cohen. Nobody knew their 
given names. Beyond Camp Street, near Magazine, 
Mme. Shall kept a boarding house. It was a popu- 
lar hostelry for gentlemen. Ladies did not board, 
except (to use Susan Nippers' language) as tem- 
poraries. 

Visitors to the city "put up" at the St. Charles 
Hotel, in the hands of Colonel Mudge. St. Charles 
was the best hotel even then, comparing favorably 
with the Gait House, in Louisville, under the man- 
agement of that prince of hosts. Major Aris Throck- 
morton — which is saying volumes for the St. 
Charles. In the season flocks of Nashville, Louis- 
ville and Cincinnati belles descended upon New Or- 
leans, sat In gorgeous attire and much chatter of 
voices on the divans under the chandelier of the St. 
Charles parlor, while the kindly fathers and in- 
sinuating brothers, bent on giving the girls a good 

162 




Exchange Alley. 



A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

time, foraged about the ample rotunda, captured, 
escorted in and introduced many eligible beaux found 
sauntering around that fascinating rendezvous. 

Up Carondelet Street — one could not find the lo- 
cation on a city map now, for, as I remember, the 
streets were not named — were suburban homes, all 
about, quite remote and countrified. Judge John N. 
Duncan lived in one of those cottages. There was a 
grand, big yard surrounding it, with fig trees, hedges, 
rosebushes and vines, a perfect bower of delight to 
us children. Rose, the only daughter, was a life- 
long friend of mine. She became the first wife of 
Col. William Preston Johnston. Nearby lived the 
Peter Conreys, who gave lovely lawn parties, that 
the naughty uninvited dubbed "Feat sham peters." 

Not so very far away, in the neighborhood of 
Constance and Robin Streets, there was erected in 
1843 quite a grand residence for the Slark family. 
I do not remember much of them in those early 
days, though they lived near enough to my father's 
to be neighbors. Later in life my acquaintance with 
them was more intimate. I recall, though, quite 
vividly Mrs. Slark's visiting card, which I admired 
prodigiously. Being a small collector of curios that 
unique bit of pasteboard was one of my treasures 
till I lost it! There seems to have been considerable 
latitude in the style of visiting cards about that time 
12 165 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

— some were highly glazed and had gilt edges; 
some were even pink tinged, but I think Mrs. Slark's 
was the ne plus ultra — a bird's beak holding a 
waving pennant, and on its flowing folds was en- 
graved "Mrs. — Abigail — L. — Slark," something 
after the style of the eagle and E plurihiis iinum. 

I find I am wandering away from that dear old 
Canal Street of fragrant memories. Fragrant, 
though the broad neutral ground was a wilderness 
of weeds of dampy growth, and (so our John used 
to tell me) snakes! There certainly were frogs 
after a spring rain. I have heard their croaks. 
Further back toward the swamps were deep ditches, 
with crawfish sneaking about in them. Fine fishing 
place for us little ones it was, too. After a heavy 
downpour of rain the poorly paved street and the 
low, marshy neutral ground was often flooded clear 
across from sidewalk to sidewalk. It was great fun 
to watch the men trying to cross the street after one 
of these rains. Rubber shoes were unknown, so 
men depended on high boots. Of course, ladies did 
not venture forth at such times, when they required 
more protection for the foot than a thin-soled slip- 
per afforded. There were goloshes, wooden soles 
fastened with straps and buckles over the Instep. A 
golosh looked like a roller skate and was about as 
easy to walk with. You never see one now. 

i66 



A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

I wonder if anyone under seventy-five years of 
age passes old "Julia Street row" to-day and knows 
that those "13 Buildings" between Camp and St. 
Charles Streets have an aristocratic past, and were 
once occupied by the leading social element of the 
American colony residing in the early forties above 
Canal Street? "13 Buildings" it was called, and 
at that date, and a decade later, every one of them 
was tenanted by prominent citizens of New Orleans. 
There they lived and entertained a host of delight- 
ful guests, whose names were a power then, but 
whose descendants are perhaps little known to-day. 

There lived Mr. Lanfear with his two daugh- 
ters. Louisa later became the wife of David Og- 
den. There lived Mrs. Slocomb and her three chil- 
dren. They became Mrs. T. G. Richardson, so well 
known and honored to-day in the Crescent City; 
Mrs. David Urquhart, now living in England, and 
Capt. Cuthbert Slocomb. Late in the forties that 
family went to Europe, and returned to occupy the 
house, built in their absence, which is now the home 
of Mr. Frank Howard, opposite Lafayette Square. 

The Branders — Mr. Brander was a merchant of 
some note and social standing. His daughter, Cale- 
donia, married Mr. Sager, an Englishman, and 
eventually went to Europe. Virginia Brander be- 
came the wife of Edward Matthews, a New York 

167 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

man, who subsequently made a large fortune by spec- 
ulating in long leases of valuable business sites in 
New York during a panic in commercial circles at 
the time of the Civil War. Their son, Brander 
JMatthews, is a distinguished man of letters and pro- 
fessor in Columbia College. The Smith family, a 
host of handsome girls, occupied the house next to 
the Camp street corner, and in that house the orig- 
inal J. P. Labouisse married beautiful Dora Smith, 
whose death, at the advanced age of ninety, occurred 
a short time ago. Charles Cammack married Sarah 
Smith in the same house, and Mary Smith married 
Morris, the son of Beverly Chew, who was a de- 
fendant in the noted Gaines case of that day. 

H. S. Buckner's home was midway of the row, 
and there was born Ellen Buckner, who became 
the wife of James B. Eustis, the first United States 
ambassador to France. Those old friends who 
visited Paris in her regime tell of her cordial and 
gracious hospitality. 

Leonard Mathews lived in one of the "13 Build- 
ings." He was agent of the Sun Insurance Company. 
There were young people in that house, too. Mary 
Jane Mathews married Mr. Hugh Wilson, a promi- 
nent business man, and their daughter married Ly- 
man Josephs of Rhode Island. There was also the 
family of Dr. William Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy 

168 




Henry Clay 



A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

was sister of Mr. Levi Peirce and of Mrs. Hillary 
Cenas. Their daughter, Charlotte, married a son 
of the distinguished Sargent S. Prentiss of Missis- 
sippi. 

Diagonally across the corner of Julia and St. 
Charles Streets was the home of Col. Maunsel 
White, a veteran of Chalmette, who won his title 
on the field. A genial Irishman, his serenity was 
disturbed about the time of which I write by the 
elopement of his oldest daughter, Eliza, with the 
dashing Cuthbert Bullitt. She died many years ago, 
but Mr. Bullitt lived and dashed many years after 
dashing ceased to be becoming. A short time ago 
he also passed away at a ripe old age, having sur- 
vived every contemporary. 

My personal recollections of the guests who came 
to my father's house in "13 Buildings" are distinct. 
Henry Clay, a lifelong friend of father's, the only 
one I ever heard call him "Dick" (even my mother 
did not do that), was a frequent visitor whenever 
he came to the Crescent City. 

My father planned in 1844 to go to England, 
and his old friend gave him the following letter. It 
was never delivered, owing to the enforced aban- 
donment of the plan, and hangs now on my library 
wall, framed, beside the Henry Clay portrait which 
illustrates this book and which is by far the best 

169 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 
likeness I have ever seen of Kentucky's gifted 



son. 



Ashland, i6th July, 1844. 
My Lord: 

Richard H. Chinn, Esq., who will deliver this 
letter desiring the honor of your Lordship's ac- 
quaintance, I take pleasure in introducing him 
(sic) to you as an eminent and highly respectable 
councillor at law, now residing in New Orleans, 
whom I have long known. 

I avail myself of the opportunity to assure your 
Lordship of the constant esteem and regard of 
Your Lordship's faithful and obedient servant, 

H. Clay. 
The Right Honorable Lord Ashburton, 
London. 

Gen. E. P. Gaines and his tiny, frisky wife, the 
noted Myra Clark Gaines, were also frequent 
guests. The General, a warrior, every inch 
of him, very tall, erect and pompously stately, al- 
ways appeared at "functions" in full uniform, epau- 
lettes, sword and what not, while she, all smiles and 
ringlets and flounces, hung upon his arm like a pink 
silk reticule. There also came Charles Gayarre, 
the Louisiana historian; John R. Grymes, the noted 
lawyer; Pierre Soule, diplomat; Alec Bullitt, Alec 
Walker and George W. Kendall — all three editors 
of the leading paper of the day, the Picayune. And 
so on. Including a host of others just as noted and 

170 



A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY 

interesting in their day, whose names are never men- 
tioned now. I cannot omit mention of the famous 
wit and beauty, Miss Sally Carneal, niece of the 
original Nick Longworth, of Ohio, for, with her 
superb voice, she frequently entertained and en- 
tranced my father's guests. I recall one occasion 
when she sang, with inimitable pathos and wild pas- 
sion, a song I never wish to hear again, "The Ma- 
niac." The little audience, roused to a pitch bor- 
dering on madness, was almost ready to shriek and 
tear its hair. Glendy Burke (does anybody remem- 
ber him? He was an eligible parti then) fell in 
desperate love with her that night, and subsequently 
they married. All are gone now; and most of them 
forgotten, except, possibly, by an old lady, who sits 
at her fireside, and unfolds the book of memory. . . . 
In course of time a Mme. Peuch took possession 
of the house on the St. Charles street corner, and, 
horrors! opened a boarding house, whereupon the 
aristocratic element gradually fluttered away. The 
Smiths and Labouisses went, as we thought, into 
the wilderness, up Carondelet Street to a kind of 
country place, with lots of ground and fig trees. 
The Buckners flew still further. I think they halted 
at Jackson Street — I am not sure the street had as 
yet a name. The Mathews moved to Annunciation 
Street. My father took his lares et penates to Canal 

171 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Street, and Mrs. Slocomb still further away, to Eu- 
rope. The Infection spread, and In a short time the 
whole "13 Buildings" pimpled out Into cheap board- 
ing houses or rented rooms. Sic transit! Where 
are all those fine people now? And what of the 
*'i3 Buildings"? Do they still stand and flaunt 
their signs over the places once adorned with Im- 
maculately shining brass name plates? or have they, 
in the march of events, also silently departed, and 
left places to be filled by a newer generation of build- 
ings. In Imitation of the lords of the earth that knew 
them and loved them and patronized them in their 
heyday? 



XXIV 

"old CREOLE days" AND WAYS 

IT was In the autumn of 1846 La Belle Creole 
carried me, a young girl, to Dr. Doussan's 
home, on the coast, above New Orleans. I 
was sent there to learn to speak French, which I had 
been fairly well taught to read and write. Both 
Dr. and Mme. Doussan were past middle life. The 
doctor was a native of France, madame a Creole, 
and the few arpents they owned were her inheritance. 
Their home was surrounded by a settlement of 
Creoles, pure and simple Creoles, such as I doubt 
exists to-day in the changed conditions that seventy 
years bring. 

The simple natives, who had little patches, some 
of which amounted to little over an arpent (about 
an acre), were domiciled so conveniently near that it 
afforded an unending source of interest to a wide- 
awake American girl to see, listen to, and talk with 
them. They were not "poor folks" except possibly 
in the one meaning of the term. There was a 
family of Grandpres in that little settlement. 

173 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Hearing the name Grandpre would instantly call to 
mind the Grandpres of Louisiana's early days. Was 
not a Grandpre Governor, or Captain General, or 
something else as notable and commanding in Louis- 
iana history, in the French, or more likely Spanish, 
occupancy of the country? This family descended 
from the original proud stock. The children, 
grown, half-grown, babies, at the time of which I 
write actually had a resident tutor, M. Marr, a 
man of no mean ability. I do not know how far 
they advanced in other branches of education, but 
their beautiful chirography would put to the blush 
any college graduate who hovers around our young 
girls to-day, and they signed themselves, too, with 
a grand flourish, De Grandpre. My old red and 
gilt album (every girl had an album and her friends 
wrote fulsome nonsense in it) has a ''Je suis tres 
flatte, mademoiselle, de pouvoir m'insci'ire," etc. 
signed L. De Grandpre. Looks as if I had flat- 
tered a nobleman of France! Doesn't it? 

That flock of children of all ages and sizes were 
being educated well for their day and generation, 
albeit Grandpre itiere strolled about in a gingham 
blouse volante, her frosty hair covered with a plaid 
tignon; and Grandpre pere snifiled around (he had 
some catarrhal trouble, I guess) in carpet slippers. 
I do not think he ever did anything but bear the 

174 



"OLD CREOLE DAYS" AND WAYS 

high-sounding name, and I never heard, after those 
album days, that the sons did either. 

A family of Lafitons lived so near that we heard 
their parrot screaming for "mon dejeuner'* every 
morning, long before it was time for anybody's 
breakfast. I think the bond of friendship that ex- 
isted between le vieux Lafiton and Dr. Doussan 
must have been that they came from the same prov- 
ince in France. Most nights, Sundays as well, 
"mon voisin," as the doctor called him, came for 
a game at cards. Long after my supper was served 
on a tray, and I was safely tucked into bed, madame 
presided at a banquet of gumbo, jumhalaya and 
salad, with their beloved Bordeaux, which was 
spread for the old gentlemen. Lafiton had strag- 
gling locks of white hair, falling over the collar of 
his great coat, reminding me of the picture of Lit- 
tle Nell's grandfather, and the home of the Lafi- 
tons carried out the simile, for it was as melancholy 
and cheerless as any "Old Curiosity Shop" could 
be. There were two bright, capable girls in it, 
though, who never knew or. saw anything better 
than the rickety old house, way up on stilts, that 
they lived in. There they stitched and darned and 
mended and patched all day (Creole women are 
not lazy), and managed to make a creditable ap- 
pearance for an afternoon promenade on the levee. 

175 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

The two grown sons caught driftwood and fish, 
and when they tired of that exertion made craw- 
fish nets. {Eh parenthese, when I had a fifteenth 
birthday, Pete, the long-legged one, gave me a finger 
ring he had made of the tooth of a shell comb.) 
They did not own a skiff, much less a horse or voi- 
liirc. For ever so long I thought Mme. Lafiton 
had chronic toothache, or some trouble In her jaws, 
for she always wore a handkerchief over her head, 
tied under the chin, and also a look of discomfort. 
In time I discovered that style of headdress, and that 
troubled smile, were peculiarly her own, and did 
not signify anything in particular. 

We had other neighbors less picturesque than 
those I have mentioned. Madame had a cousin 
living quite near, who had, as had all Creole women 
in those days, a great flock of chlkiren. The Du- 
broca family seemed to be fairly well-to-do. Mr. 
Dubroca was sugar-maker for a nearby planter. 
Madame and her daughter Alzlre were thrifty, hos- 
pitable and kindly. The sons, as they grew up, were 
sent to schools and colleges. Madame was a sister 
of Mrs. (Judge) Eustis of New Orleans, both be- 
ing daughters of Valerie Allain, a planter of means, 
whose property when divided among his children 
did not amount to much for each. 

That brings me to the Favrot family. Judge 
176 



"OLD CREOLE DAYS" AND WAYS 

Favrot was a prominent citizen of the parish, and 
his son, a law student when I knew him, was much 
above the average. I scarce should mention this 
family that I saw almost daily and knew so well 
in connection with the obscure Creoles of the sim- 
pler life that I met and knew quite as intimately. 
The judge, and his son, were violinists. It was 
no unusual thing for him to play dance music for 
us, accommodating old gentleman that he was ! We 
always had to adjourn to Lafiton's to "trip the light 
fantastic," for there was a great barn of a room, 
with bare floor, and no furniture to mention, which 
they called le salon. 

Mme. Doussan often visited friends, by rowboat, 
on the opposite side of the river. She felt the re- 
sponsibility of the care of the young girls, so 
strangely placed in her hands, so she never em- 
barked on her frequent visits by boat or voiture 
without the company of one she might have es- 
teemed an incumbrance if I had not already been 
received into the holy of holies of her loving heart. 

There were two families of Choppins we saw 
frequently. The daughter of one, quite a child 
then, became at a later date wife of Dauphin. The 
eldest son of the other Choppin family, a youth of 
less than twenty, was already studying medicine in 
the office of a country town doctor. We saw much 

177 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of him, the bright, attractive fellow! as he used to 
row himself over to the impromptu dances in the 
Lafiton salon. Later his ambition carried him to 
Paris, and later still he returned, a distinguished 
physician and surgeon, to New Orleans. He was 
a devoted citizen also. None who heard his im- 
passioned address, and his rendering in thrilling 
tones the inspiring "Atix Armes! Ci toy ens" of the 
Marseillaise from the steps of Clay's monument, 
on Canal street, at the beginning of the war, ever 
forgot it. 

Madame and I often visited other families in 
Baton Rouge, the Bonnecazes, Lanoues, Huguets 
and so on. As I remember, all lived over or in the 
rear of their shops. Very many families lived over 
shops in those days, not always over their own shops 
either. John Winthrop, a scion of the Massachu- 
setts John Winthrop, and his aristocratic family 
lived over Symes' lace store, on Royal street in 
New Orleans. There was a shoemaker's establish- 
ment on the ground floor of the Miltenberger resi- 
dence. My father's family lived over an exchange 
broker's office on Canal Street. In 1842, when a 
mob raided, or threatened to raid, banks and ex- 
change brokers' offices, the strong box of the firm 
in our basement was conveyed to my mother for 
safekeeping. But this was in New Orleans, and I 

178 



"OLD CREOLE DAYS" AND WAYS 

see I am wandering from my Creole friends on the 
coast, where I delighted to visit with ma chere ma- 
dame. 

Twice during that lovely six months' episode of 
my life, escorted by the doctor, we boarded the fas- 
cinating Belle Creole and made longer flights and 
longer visits to relatives of madame living beyond 
a voiture's possibilities. Once it was to spend a few 
days with the Valcour Aimes at their incomparable 
home; at another time we had two never-to-be-for- 
gotten days at Sosthene Allain's, where I met two 
sweet girls of my own age. Then and there began 
a friendship that continued through our young lady- 
hood. We were three inseparable companions un- 
til three weddings sent us (as is the nature of things) 
on divergent paths. Celeste went to Paris, so re- 
mote then that she was practically lost to us. I do 
not suppose a single one of those who made those 
six months of my girlhood so happy is living to-day. 
Some have left no descendants; I do not know who 
has or who has not, but I pay this tribute to the 
Creole simple life, that seems in the retrospect al- 
most ideal, and no episode of my checkered life is 
sweeter to recall. 

Dr. Doussan was a botanist. His garden was 
the mecca of all lovers of plant life. I imagine it 
was excelled only by the noted grounds of the Val- 

179 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

cour Aimes. Fruit and vegetables were sent daily 
in a skiff to the town market. Ma chere 7nadame, 
in her black silk blouse volante and her cap, with 
stiff, fluted frill tied under the chin, often let me 
help her make the formal little bouquets for the 
market, the dear old stiff bouquets, flat as a plate 
and nestling in a frill of lace paper! The doctor 
spent hours in his cabinet with his botanical treas- 
ures. Daily I was summoned to read to him his 
Paris Journal, and to write a composition. No 
teacher could have been more painstaking; no 
scholar more appreciative. 

Early in 1847 ^ nephew of the doctor's arrived 
from France, a dapper, Frenchified youth of eight- 
een. The Doussans were childless, but they had 
adopted a young girl. At the time of which I write 
she was about my age, and was being educated at 
Sacre Coeur Convent. She was home only for Eas- 
ter vacation. No one told me, no one even hinted 
it, but I intuitively understood that a mariage de 
convenance was planned for the dapper young 
Frenchman and the pretty blonde girl, and the visit 
was meant to introduce Marie to her pretendii; they 
seemed to accept the arrangement complacently, but 
I was most Interested in watching the proceedings, 
and, to say the least, much entertained. 

It was fully fifty years after these events when 
180 



"OLD CREOLE DAYS" AND WAYS 

Doussan ncveu and I met again, two old gray-haired 
folks. When the first frost of astonishment melted, 
and we could recognize each other, we had a grand 
time recalling places and people. How we laughed 
over the remembrance of the antics of the doctor's 
pet monkey; and, oh yes! the voluble Lafiton par- 
rot! For a brief hour we lived again the halcyon 
days of fifteen and eighteen. The following year 
Doussan passed away — severing for me the last 
living link that bound me to the simple Creole life, 
on the borders of which I had such a happy girl- 
hood. 



13 



XXV 

A VISIT TO VALCOUR AIME PLANTATION 

LA BELLE CREOLE! That name will bring 
a smile, mayhap a tear, to your grand- 
mother, so many sweet reminiscences of 
her young girlhood may be associated with the lit- 
tle coast packet that carried her a-visiting from New 
Orleans to plantation homes in "the days that were," 
those leisurely days when there were no rail cars 
tearing and crashing over the land, no express com- 
panies to forward packages, no common carriers of 
any sort. A boat like La Belle Creole was a neces- 
sity. On her trips she stopped at every little town 
and country post office, like Brusle landing and 
Lobdell's store; answered every signal and every 
hail, shuttling across the river, back and forth, 
touching here for a keg of s'lrop de hatterie, 
a hamper of oranges; touching at the very next 
plantation to take in somebody's carpetbag or put 
ashore somebody's darky, Capt. Ure always at his 
post on deck to expedite every move. La Belle 
Creole was not a freight boat, but a passenger 

182 



A VISIT TO VALCOUR AIME PLANTATION 

packet, par excellence. There were boats galore to 
handle freight, but only one Belle Creole! "Steam- 
boat ahoy!" We slow up, a gentleman rushes down 
from his plantation house, followed by a darky, 
carpetbag in hand. A plank is quickly run out, 
touching the shore, steadied by deckhands; passenger 
rushes aboard, has a handshake with Capt. Ure, and 
away we go to perhaps another hail. In the cabin 
the scene is like that of an "afternoon tea," an "at 
home," a "reception," whatever you will, for every- 
body knows everybody, and everybody shakes hands 
with everybody, and thus the newcomer is welcomed 
to the social atmosphere of a circle of Creole 
friends. "Comment ca va?" "Aye! quel chance! 
c'es^t toi," are heard on every side, for some of these 
people rarely meet except in transit. And so, we 
sail along; the simple little craft is glorified by the 
magnetic influence of its passengers. 

M. Champomier is on board. Everybody knows 
le vieiix Champomier. He mingles with all, con- 
spicuously carries his memorandum book and pencil, 
and we all know he is "on business bent," getting 
from any and every available source statistics of the 
year's crop of sugar. Whether he acted for a cor- 
poration, or it was his individual enterprise, I never 
knew, but he visited the planters, traveled up and 
down and all around the sugar region, and in the 

183 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

spring compiled and computed and published in a 
small, paper-covered book (price $5) the name and 
address of every planter and the amount of sugar 
made on each individual estate. "Champomier's re- 
port" was considered as authentic as need be for 
the planter to know what his neighbor's crop actu- 
ally amounted to, and the city merchant to adjust 
his mortgages and loans on a safe basis. 

It was after midnight when the plank was thrown 
out to touch the levee of the Valcour Aime planta- 
tion; midnight in late March, 1847. Deckhands 
steadied the wabbling plank till three persons and 
their little baggage were safely landed ashore. A 
tram (as it is called to-day) was awaiting the doctor, 
Tante Lise and myself, then a girl of fifteen. Dar- 
kies with torches preceded and followed us to the 
house, not so far away, only a short walk, but Tante 
Lise must not be permitted to walk at that hour of 
the night. The tram was nothing more than a flat 
car, fitted for the occasion with seats, on a short 
railroad leading to the sugar refinery, which I be- 
lieve was the first in the state. A dusky house- 
keeper received us at the house. Not knowing at 
what hour we might appear, the family had retired. 
Belle Creole, as may be supposed, had no fixed 
schedule of arrivals or departures. Fires were al- 
ready alight in our rooms, affording a cheery wel- 

184 



A VISIT TO VALCOUR AIME PLANTATION 

come. Before we were ready for bed basins of hot 
water were brought for the inevitable foot bath of 
the Creole. Something warm to drink, a tisane 
probably — I remember I thought it might be am- 
brosia, fit for the gods, it was so deliciously refresh- 
ing. Then I was tenderly tucked into bed, and told 
to '^dormez bien," which I straightway proceeded 
to do. 

The sun was already proclaiming a bright spring 
day when I inhaled the odor, and opened my eyes 
to a full-blown rose on my pillow; and gracious, 
how good! a steaming cup of cafe au hit. On our 
descent to the breakfast room we received an effu- 
sive and cordial greeting from M. and Mme. Val- 
cour, and their daughter Felicie, a girl of my own 
age. The air was redolent of the delicious odor of 
roses, the windows open to the floor upon the gar- 
den, the floor of the room not one step higher than 
the garden walks. The Valcour Aime house was a 
two-story structure. The long, main building faced, 
of course, the roadway and the river; there was a 
long L at each end, running back, thus forming 
three sides of a square court. A broad and partly 
jalousled balcony extended entirely around the three 
sides of the building, fronting the court. This bal- 
cony afforded the entrances to a seemingly endless 
series of living and sleeping rooms, the whole house 

185 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

being, so to say, one room deep only. The first floor, 
flush with the ground, was entirely paved with square 
blocks of stone or brick. There were to be found 
the small and the grand dining rooms, the master's 
office and den and the various and sundry domestic 
departments. The salon opened on the second floor 
balcony. The paved court below was protected by 
the deep balconies and an awning. The assemblage 
of all the family and the favorite resort of their 
multitudinous guests, madame's basket, mademoi- 
selle's embroidery frame, the box of cigars, the com- 
fortable lounging chairs, were to be found in that 
entrancing court. 

M. Valcour, tall and graceful, was at that time in 
the prime of life, and was my (romantic) ideal of 
a French marquis; Mme. Valcour, inclined to em- 
bonpoint and vivacious, kissed me and called me 
"ma petite," though I was quite her height. But 
the charm of my visit to that incomparable mansion, 
the like of which is not to be found on the Missis- 
sippi River to-day, was the daughter, Felicie, who 
at once took me under her wing and entertained 
me as only a well-bred young girl can. She showed 
me all over the premises, opening door after door, 
that I could see how adequate the accommodations 
for the guests who frequently filled the house ; into 
the salon that I might see and listen to the chimes of 

i86 



A VISIT TO VALCOUR AIME PLANTATION 

the gilt clock Gabie had sent from Paris. Gabriel 
Aime, the only son, was then in Europe. Sweet 
Felicie never tired of talking of Gabie and showing 
me the pretty trifles from abroad (so far away 
then) he had sent home from time to time. She sent 
for the key, and opened the door of Gabie's room, 
that I might see how he had left it, and, "Mamma 
won't have a thing changed; she wants him to find 
his gun and boots and cap just where he left them." 
Girl-like, she confided to me that she would be a 
young lady when Gabie came, and they would have a 
house in the city and a box at the opera, for Gabie 
loved music. 

By this time a number of the Roman family ar- 
rived. M. Valcour's oldest daughter had married 
Gov. Roman's son, and a flock of Roman grand- 
children came with their parents to welcome the 
doctor and Tante Lise, and incidentally the young 
girl with them. The Valcours and Romans were 
closely related, independent of the marriage of 
their children. Both families being related to 
Tante Lise also, there was a great reunion and re- 
joicing when the tante made her annual visit. The 
governess, a New England woman, was accorded a 
holiday, in which Felicie participated. Years after, 
perhaps as many as forty years, I met and renewed 
acquaintance with that governess in her New Eng- 

187 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

land town. Only recently she passed away, hav- 
ing outlived, I understand, all the little pupils who 
clustered around "Dear Miss Goddard." 

Felicie and I, with a whole escort of followers, 
explored the spacious grounds, considered the finest 
in Louisiana. There was a miniature river, mean- 
dering in and out and around the beautifully kept 
parterres, the tiny banks of which were an unbroken 
mass of blooming violets. A long-legged man might 
have been able to step across this tiny stream, but 
it was spanned at intervals by bridges of various 
designs, some rustic, some stone, but all furnished 
with parapets, so one would not tumble in and 
drown, as a little Roman remarked. If It had not 
been before Perry's expedition to Japan, at any rate 
before his report was printed and circulated, one 
might have supposed M. Valcour received his in- 
spiration in landscape gardening from the queer 
little Eastern people. There were summer houses 
draped with strange, foreign-looking vines; a pa- 
goda on a mound, the entrance of which was reached 
by a flight of steps. It was an octagonal building, 
with stained-glass windows, and it struck my inex- 
perienced eye as a very wonderful and surprising 
bit of architecture. Further on was — a mountain! 
covered from base to top with beds of blooming 
violets. A narrow, Avinding path led to the summit, 

i88 



A VISIT TO VALCOUR AIME PLANTATION 

from which a comprehensive view was obtained of 
the extensive grounds, bounded by a series of con- 
servatories. It was enchanting. There I saw for 
the first time the magnolia frascati, at that date a 
real rarity. 

Another day, doctor, Tante Lise, Felicie and I 
were rowed in a skiff across the river to Sacre Coeur 
Convent to see tante's adopted daughter, Marie. I 
recall spending the day there, the kindly nuns show- 
ing the little heretic all through the building, 
and being rowed back to the plantation at sun- 
set. 

Next morning the Belle Creole was due, and our 
visit to fairyland was drawing to a close. The call, 
"la Vapeiir," rushed us to the landing In the tram, 
the "whole pack in full cry" of the Roman chil- 
dren running by the side and calling adieu to dear 
Tante Lise. We gingerly walked the plank, in sin- 
gle file. The boat backed out to get her leeway, 
and once more for a moment we were in full view 
of the house. Two figures fluttered handkerchiefs 
from the balcony, Mme. Valcour and Felicie wav- 
ing a last adieu — alas! a last. On entering the 
cabin, behold the ubiquitous M. Champomier, with 
his everlasting book and pencil. As he greeted the 
doctor I heard (In French, of course), "Can you 

tell me the exact amount of ?" I fled, and at 

189 



SOCIAL l-ll'l'. IN ()!,!) Ni'.W OULI'.ANS 

(lie rc.ii- tilt! <il tlif Ito.il I Ii.kI one m<tic l;isl ^liiiipsc 
(tl V.il(()iii- Aiiiic's |il.iiil .ilioii. AiiisI llic List. 

/\ iiioiilli I, ltd I U'iis on ;i (li|i|)fr sliip, (lie .S/7wv 
lloliins, IxiiiikI htr ;i New I'-ii^iaiul sfliool. I li;it 
V;mkcc, .S'//r/\ Unliiiis, \v;is ;i li;iMs|)<trt (iiiriii^,', llic 
W'.ir, .111(1 likf III. my ii w.w rein li:is loiif.', hccii (nil 
()l I oiiiiiiissloii, il iiol <Mit ol cxislciiic. And the 
tLiinly liillt- ('fi'oir, ^'o'"' ••*<»' like lliuiis;iii(ls (tl 
licllcs C'icolis ol lici (l.iy ;iii(l (l.ilf. 

|)iMr l''('ri(ic iiiiinic'd Allied l\oin;m, ;iddm|^ iin- 
oilier link (d rcliltioiisllip to the ivoiii.iii .iiid \ ,il 
idiir Aiiiic I.iiiiiIks, .iiid llif iidoicd ;md oiil\ son, 
(i.il)ii(l Aiiiic, died (I liiiiik r.inic I .isc wrote iiic) 
, lino. id. 

I slioiiid like (o know. No, I do not w:inl (o 
know. I .iliciidy kiKtw loo many vvrccktui lioiius 
.ind \.inislu(l lorliiius iiid hiokfn lu'nrls. I w.mt 
always to lliiiik ol the N'.iKoui" Aimc liomc and its 
(Ii,iiiiimj> lios|iil ,ilit y, .IS I s.iw It .md knew it, .ind 
|o\ cd it moic ill, III si\t\' years ago, wlun I w.iscd .1 
last .idiiii alas I a l.isl. 



XXVI 

'I III', oil) I'l.A.N I A I ION INK 

II I', .iliiio'.l .1 li.ill (ciiliiiy since llir old |)l,iiil.i- 
iioii (l;iys. Only iIiom- vvlio ninnlxi liirc'c- 
s(()rc yciirs iind liii li.ivc :i jkisoimI Kiniin- 
hraiicc ol llic (iiics, dulns ;ind |)lc;isur('s «d tin- old 
|)I;inl:ilIon Idc Only lliosc vvlio Ixtvv llic (iucs, dis- 
cliiir^cd the dntic. ;ind |)i(|):i red lln- vv.iy lor iIk* 
pleasures really under'. land llie Ide llial (hed and 
was buried Idly years af^o. I*eo|)le who know so 
nuK li ahoiil llial lanatic John lirown and ihe iaii- 
laslic "Uncle I oni's C'ahin" are askni^ what one 
fouf^hl and hied for (did he hjeed?) and whal the 
other was wiillen lor. Some of those ni(|inrinj4 
souls are over Idly years old, and what is more, 
their fathers were slave owners. Ihe (cw of us 
tollerinj.^ around who (an tell of the old |)lantalion 
life are threescore years and ten, and il we do not 
hast"en to tell the story il may never he told. It Is 
well to leave a record of a life that has passed be- 
yond resurrection, a jjjorified record il in.iy appear, 
lor as we stand heside the hiei id a loved and lile- 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

long friend, we recall only his virtues. So as I 
look back on the old plantation life only the com- 
forts and pleasures troop before me. It had its 
duties, but they were not onerous; its cares, but they 
were not burdensome, nor were its pleasures exces- 
sive. What we planned and accomplished for our 
slaves afforded us more satisfaction than any man 
of the present day can feel for his grand stables 
of hunters and roadsters and racers, that absorb 
his time and means. 

Booker Washington, in that very interesting vol- 
ume, "Up from Slavery," tells of his early life when 
his mother (he never knew his father, and thinks 
he was a white man) was the slave of a well-to-do 
Virginia farmer, and the slave quarters had dirt 
floors. That may have been in the clay hills of Vir- 
ginia, but I never saw a cabin, unless it was a pig 
pen, with a dirt floor. I am no apologist for slav- 
ery; the whites suffered more from its demoralizing 
influence than the blacks, but we were born to it, 
grew up with it, lived with it, and it was our daily 
life. We did well by it; no people could have done 
better. It is past now. When I tell of my own 
home It is to tell of the plantation homes of every- 
body I knew. We did not differ or vary to any ex- 
tent in our modes of life and management. 

Slaves were comfortably housed. Their cabins 
192 




o 

H 
O 
g 



THE OLD PLANTATION LIFE 

were elevated above the ground, two rooms in each 
building, a chimney between, a porch in front and 
windows on two sides. The slaves were well fed and 
well clothed in osnaburgs and linseys cut and made 
in the sewing room of the "big house." Though the 
hook worm theory was not at that time exploited 
they were well shod. There were drones; I guess 
there were hook worms too, but we did not know it. 
The old and infirm had light tasks. Men pottered 
around the woodpile, or tended the cows on their 
promenades over the levee, and the women sewed 
a little and quarreled, as idly disposed old folks 
will, among themselves (we who visit almshouses 
now know how that is) or fussed with the frolicking 
children. I never saw in those days a negro with 
spectacles, or one who seemed to need them. 

There was an infirmary for the sick, and a day nur- 
sery for the babies, under the charge of a granny, a 
well-ventilated room with a spacious fireplace, where 
pots and kettles were always on hand, mush and 
hefb teas always on tap; there the babies were de- 
posited In cribs all day while the mothers were at 
work In the fields. No woman went to work until 
her child was a month old. A large diary folio 
record was kept by the overseer of all the incidents 
of the plantation; when a woman was confined, when 
she was sent again to the field, who was 111 in the 

193 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

hospital, if doctor was summoned, what part of the 
canefield was being cultivated day by day, when 
sugar-making began, when finished, what the yield of 
the various "cuts," how many hogsheads and barrels 
of molasses shipped and by what boats; all these 
items and ever so many more were recorded. A doc- 
tor was employed at $600 per annum. He came 
only in extreme cases. Headaches and stomach 
aches, earaches, toothaches and backaches, all these 
minor ills came under the care of the overseer and 
"Gunn's Domestic Medicine," a formidable volume 
of instruction. The lady, the "mistis" of the big 
house, made frequent visits to the quarter lot, saw 
that things were kept tidy and ministered to the 
sick. 

We did not have "made-over" dishes, cold meats 
nor stale bread on our tables; little darkies were 
sent by the half sick and aged for "left overs." 
Children were not bottlefed or spoonfed; they con- 
sumed pot liquor and mush and molasses as soon as 
they were weaned. Corn, cowpeas and turnips 
were cultivated for the slaves, and when there was 
an overplus of garden vegetables it was sent to the 
quarter kitchen. Their meat was pickled pork — it 
was called "clear sides" — shipped from Kentucky 
or Missouri. All their cooking was done by two 
cooks in a big kitchen, but every cabin had a fire- 

194 



THE OLD PLANTATION LIFE 

place, with a pot or skillet, of course, for we all 
know how the darky dotes on little messes of her 
own doing. All the doors had locks, and the women 
went to the field with the key hung around their 
necks. 

Each spring at house-cleaning, cabins were white- 
washed inside and out; also the stables and other 
plantation buildings, the fences and trees as high 
up as a long pole or brush could reach. From 
Saturday noon till Monday was holiday, when the 
enterprising men chopped wood, for which they 
were paid, and the drones sunned themselves on 
the porch steps, and the women washed their 
clothes. I knew of only one planter who made his 
negroes work on Sundays. He was an Englishman 
who married into a plantation. The indignant 
neighbors called the attention of the grand jury in 
that case, with success, too. During sugar-making 
everybody worked day and night, but the season was 
short, terminating in December. 

I cannot recall more than three deaths in ten 
years. I have no record to refer to (I guess that 
plantation folio afforded some information to the 
Union army). There was a burial ground for the 
slaves. One of them, the engineer, by the way, 
and a mighty good negro, too, acted as preacher. 
He married and buried and in all ways ministered 

195 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to the spiritual needs of his flock. I recall teaching 
Lewis to sing "Canaan." He wanted to learn a 
hymn, and had a lusty bass voice, while I did not 
have any at all. Lewis was not the only accom- 
plished negro. We did not have white labor. 
There were slave carpenters, coopers, masons and 
sugar makers; women who cut and made all cloth- 
ing, shirts, coats, pantaloons, dresses. 

By law no child under ten years of age could 
be sold from its mother. I suppose that law 
is obsolete now! It happened a negro child born 
in the penitentiary of a convict mother, named 
Alroy, had to remain ten years in confinement; he 
was taught reading and writing, probably all the 
Rs, by the convicts, while he imbibed in such sur- 
roundings a good many less desirable accomplish- 
ments. Hon. Mr. Alroy represented his native par- 
ish in the Louisiana Legislature of reconstruction 
times. He was better fitted probably than some of 
his dusky colleagues, for he could read the laws; 
some of them could not. That is also of the dead 
past, thank God, and has no bearing on the old plan- 
tation life, except as an illustration of the law re- 
garding slaves. 

The "big house" had no fastenings on the front 
and back doors. In the absence of my husband one 
time I was awakened, in the dead hour of night, by 

196 



THE OLD PLANTATION LIFE 

a touch on my shoulder. "It's me, mistis; de le- 
vee's broke." A crevasse! Without taking time 
to put on an extra gown, I was an hour giving orders 
and dispatching men to the planters, even twenty 
miles off, for assistance. 

For a week thereafter, day and night, I fairly 
lived on horseback at the levee, superintending the 
repair work in place of my absent husband and our 
Inefficient overseer. Each planter affected by the 
crevasse came, or sent an overseer with a force of 
slaves, who worked in hour shifts, to their waists 
in the water, driving piles and heaping sand bags. 
As the shifts changed the men were given a dram 
and hot soup or coffee, and sent to a huge bonfire 
nearby to dry themselves. 

Another time I landed from a boat at the witch- 
ing hour between midnight and dawn. The boat's 
bell and whistle sounded to attract some light 
sleeperi By the time I was fairly ashore a glim- 
mering light of a lantern was seen. I was escorted 
to the house by the coachman, but if any other 
negro had responded I should have felt quite as 
safe. 

Mammy Charlotte was supreme in the domestic 
department. The little cupbearers from the quar- 
ters reported to her for the "dreenlngs" of the cof- 
fee pot or the left-over soup. The visitor by the 
14 197 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

library fire called to her for a glass of wine or a 
"finger" of whisky. I called Charlotte to ask what 
we were going to have for dinner. She was the 
busy one, and every plantation had just such a 
mammy. Charlotte and I belonged to the same 
church. When there was a vacant seat in the car- 
riage Sunday morning she was called to occupy it. 

One of our neighbors, that a New Englander 
would call a "near" man, owned a few acres ad- 
joining ours, but too remote from his plantation to 
be advantageously cultivated. He would not fence 
his property nor work his road, nor keep his levee 
in repair (it was just there we had the crevasse) ; 
however, it afforded good pasturage for Uncle 
Billy's cow, and for us, a supply of mushrooms. 
Billy's nets and lines supplied us with shrimp and 
fish, small catfish that William cooked a la pom- 
pano, not a poor imitation of that delectable Gulf 
dainty. I heard Charlotte berating Billy for not 
bringing in some more of those fine shrimp, when he 
knew, too, there was company in the house. Imag- 
ine my consternation at Billy's reply, "Dey done 
gorn; dat ole drowned mule is floated away." 

Col. Hicky was our nearest neighbor, on Hope 
estate. When the dear old man was eighty and I 
was twenty-five we were great chums. He never 
passed in his buggy if I was visible on the lawn 

198 



THE OLD PLANTATION LIFE 

or porch without stopping for a chat. There was 
frequent interchange of neighborly courtesies. He 
had fine large pecans, and we didn't; we had celery 
and he didn't, so there was much flitting back and 
forth of baskets. If we were having an unusual 
occasion, like the dinner my husband gave in honor 
of Messrs. Slidell and Benjamin, when they were 
elected to the United States Senate, a big basket 
came from Hope estate. Didn't the dear old gen- 
tleman send a capon turkey which was too big for 
any dish we had, and didn't we have to borrow the 
Hicky dish? 

Col. Hicky had a birthday dinner, when he was 
eighty-two, and a grand dinner it was, to be sure. 
Sam Moore — I never knew just who he was, or 
why he was so essential at every function — sat at 
the host's right. The Colonel was too deaf to hear 
all the bon mo4s, and Sam interpreted for him, and 
read in a loud voice all the toasts, some of which 
were very original and bright. Anyone remember- 
ing Col. Winthrop, or better still, Judge Avery, can 
understand there was no lack of wit and sparkle in 
any toast they might make. 



XXVII 

PEOPLE I HAVE ENTERTAINED 

I IMAGINE all of us have read "People I Have 
Smiled With," or, "People I Have Known," 
but not many are writing about "People I 
Have Entertained." Rocking away the remnant of 
a long and varied life, I find myself dreamingly en- 
tertaining guests who are long since departed to 
the "House of Many Mansions," guests who came 
and stayed, and went, some of whom I had never 
seen before, and some I never heard from after, 
but there are guests and guests, as every housewife 
knows. Particularly country house guests come, 
whose city houses are not open to what a neighbor of 
mine calls "trunk visitors." In the days of which 
I write, every house, especially every plantation 
house, had a conspicuous latch string outside the 
door. I amuse my grandchildren with tales of the 
varied assortment of visitors I had "befo' de war," 
just as I had conjured to rest their mothers and 
fathers when they clamored to be told again about 
the gentleman who brought his own sheets and cof- 

200 



PEOPLE I HAVE ENTERTAINED 

fee pot, or the lady who wanted to pray all the time. 
I feel I am telling these tales for the last time. 
They don't point a moral, for no guest can 
do to-day, nor will hereafter, the things some 
of my guests did, let us think, in the innocence of 
their hearts. 

The first visitor I recall when I was a bride in 
my new home, was a distinguished, eccentric, liter- 
ary man, a bachelor, and a Creole, brim full of 
cranks and kinks, but a delightful conversationalist 
withal. Before he arrived I knew he was coming 
from a visit to an adjacent parish where his great 
heart had been touched by the witchery of a young 
girl. With his Sancho, the Don Quixote had been 
storming the citadel, and to continue the simile he 
struck a windmill, and so was put to flight. Now 
he was accepting my husband's invitation to rest, 
and salve his wounds at our home. I was amazed 
when my housemaid told me he had not only brought 
his valet, but his own linen sheets and his coffee 
pot! I understood then why he was not an accept- 
able suitor. Linen sheets and the coffee pot would 
scare any prospective housewife. When I knew 
what a blunder he had committed, I confess to little 
sympathy in his discomfort. That old gentleman 
died full of honors and deeply lamented, in New 
Orleans, a few years ago. 

201 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Mrs. Breckinridge was our guest, while her hus- 
band was vice-president. The presidential candi- 
dates, almost forgotten now, were Buchanan and 
Breckinridge. She was active and eager to have 
her husband mount to the top of the ladder of pre- 
ferment, and did no little engineering in his behalf 
that winter. Mrs. Breckinridge was charming, a 
delightful visitor, a relative by marriage to us, but 
so remote, that if she had not been so lovely and the 
vice-president so distinguished, the dim connection 
would never have been thought of. Her aspira- 
tions were not realized, and he was tail to another 
presidential kite, that could not be made to fly. We 
did not meet Mrs. Breckinridge after that long visit, 
and the last time I saw her husband he was a flee- 
ing Confederate general in Havana, without incum- 
brance of any kind, so he was not our "trunk visi- 
tor." 

During the early fifties a planter from Bayou 
Lafourche bought a plantation on the Mississippi 
River, fully five miles from us, and on the opposite 
side of the river, as well. My husband, in his 
grandiloquent flamboyant manner, invited him to 
bring his family to our house to stay till their lares 
ct penates were settled in their new home. The 
man, in the same grandiloquent, flamboyant style, ac- 
cepted. When I asked how many there were in the 

202 



PEOPLE I HAVE ENTERTAINED 

family, my hospitable husband replied that he only 
heard mention of a wife. In due time a little La- 
fourche packet, with ever so much turning and back- 
ing, blowing of whistle and ringing of bells, as if 
to announce a surprise (which it certainly did), ran 
out a plank at our levee, and a whole procession 
walked that plank and filed up the path to the house. 
I looked from an upper window, and counted the 
guests as they marched up, in twos and threes: A 
man and his wife, her aged mother and brother, 
four boys, ranging from three to ten years, and a 
darky with the baby in arms! 

One guest room had been made ready, but three 
additional chambers were at once put in commis- 
sion. By the time wraps had been removed and 
fresh fires made all over the house — it was mid- 
winter — I was ten times more breathless than my 
unexpected crowd. Every day for over a week the 
man and his wife were conveyed to their new home 
in our carriage, and there they stayed from morn 
to dewy eve. The aged grandmother was left in 
my special care. She was unable to cope with the 
untrained boys, as, indeed, all of us were. The uncle 
had rheumatism or something that confined him to 
his bed most of the time. So the boys were left to 
their own devices, to gallop in and out of doors, 
from the muddy garden to the Brussels carpets, all 

203 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

hours of the day. The baby squalled, and the nurse 
spanked it, and I didn't care. 

One stormy day the boys found occupation in- 
doors that was very diverting. They extracted 
every button from a tufted, upholstered chair in 
the library, the one their grandmother most af- 
fected, and with hairpin and nail, scratched hiero- 
glyphics all over a newly-painted mantel, till it 
looked like it had been taken from some buried city 
of Egypt. Thank goodness! Visits don't last for- 
ever. In the course of time the family moved into 
the new home, and gave a house-warming ball with- 
in the next week — vhe la bagatelle! 

Reading with great interest a newly published 
book, "The Circuit Rider's Wife," brings vividly 
to mind a visitor we once had. She was one of the 
sweetest and loveliest of women. She was a Metho- 
dist, the only one in a wide acquaintance I ever met, 
who claimed to have "the gift of sanctification." I 
do not believe one possesses the power within one- 
self to resist sin, nor do I mean to inject religious 
views and doctrines in these remarks about "People 
I Have Entertained," but I do say, if there ever 
was a really sanctified woman it was this Mrs. 
Abe Smith of Mississippi. She was our guest one 
short, happy, glorified week. She read her Bible 
chapter to us every morning, and prayed with and 

204 



PEOPLE I HAVE ENTERTAINED 

for us all day long, if we wanted, and we generally 
did, for surely she had the gift of prayer. I never 
listened to such uplifting prayers as dear Mrs. Smith 
could utter; her very voice was an inspiration. She 
was highly connected and highly cultivated and had 
a vocal training that comprised very intricate music, 
but with "The Coming of the Lord" she confined 
her voice entirely to psalms and hymns. Her mission 
was to pray and sing, but no doubt when the har- 
vest was waiting, in some meeting house, she could 
exhort with an eloquence equal to the most earnest 
Itinerant in the pulpit. We had one strange glori- 
fication and sanctification, but it was interrupted by 
the coming of a Methodist preacher, who claimed 
to having sought, in vain, the gift of sanctification. 
The last few days of lovely Sister Smith's visit were 
spent in the library with closed doors, wrestling with 
the halting soul of Brother Camp. 

These were the expiring days of the old "Peace 
which passeth understanding." After that came the 
war, which sorely tried the heart of the glorified 
woman, and she proved faithful to her gift of sanc- 
tification even unto the bitter end. 

One November day I entered my library with an 
open letter of introduction in my hand, to say to 
the young man, placidly warming himself at the fire, 
that the letter was not meant for my husband, who 

205 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

was not at home, but for his brother. He replied 
he understood the brother was not in Louisiana, and 
he took the liberty of transferring the introductory 
epistle to the next of kin. He was a young doctor, 
threatened witli lung trouble, who had come South 
to spend some time in somebody's sugar house. I 
frankly told him that our sugar house was not by 
any means a suitable place for an invalid, but (I 
glanced out of the door and saw his vehicle had de- 
parted and his trunk was on the porch) I would be 
pleased to have him remain my guest until my hus- 
band returned to see what could be devised to fur- 
ther the invalid's plan. Northern and Western 
people, who never had been in a sugar house and in- 
haled the warm fumes of boiling cane juice, night 
and day, and incidentally submitteci to the discom- 
forts of an open building, not intended for sleeping 
quarters, thought that the treatment, as they chose 
to call it, was a cure for tuberculosis. My guest 
found himself quite comfortable, and remained in 
our home five months. Nothing more was said 
about sugar house treatment. By spring, like 
a butterfly, he emerged into the sunlight, strong 
and well and ready to fly to pastures new, 
which he did. We did not even hear from that 
doctor again. He was a physician in good prac- 
tice in Galveston during the war, and told 

206 



PEOPLE I HAVE ENTERTAINED 

Gen. Magruder he tliought he had met us years 
before ! 

Every planter in my day entertained strangers 
who came and went, like a dream. Some were 
grateful for their entertainment, some did not so 
much as write "bread and butter" notes, after their 
departure. 

Queer, inquisitive folks lighted upon us now and 
then. I recall a party of Philadelphians who ar- 
rived at the adjacent town with a note of introduc- 
tion to the president of the bank. They said they 
wanted to visit a plantation and see the working 
thereof. That hospitable husband of mine hap- 
pened to be passing; he was called in and introduced 
to the party, and he invited them for the whole of 
the next day. They came, they saw, I don't know 
if they thought they conquered. We thought so, 
for they were on a tour of observation. They were 
delightfully informal and interesting people. We 
accompanied them to the canefield — the negroes hap- 
pened to be at work quite near the house — into 
some of the cabins, the infirmary, where they were 
surprised to find not one inmate, into the nursery 
where the babies were sleeping in cribs, and the older 
children eating mush and molasses. They had to 
taste the food, had to talk to the granny about her 
babies, had to ask after her health. Meeting a ne- 

207 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

gro man, walking as brisk as anybody, with a hoe 
over his shoulder, they had to inquire as to his condi- 
tion, and must have been surprised to hear what 
an awful misery he had in his back. They had to 
see where the plantation sewing, and the cooking, 
were done. I began to think before it was all over 
we were superintendents of some penal institution 
and were enduring a visit from the committee of 
inspection. However, they were very attractive, 
naive visitors, surprised at everything. After lunch- 
eon, waited upon by a negro boy on a broad grin — 
it was all so very funny to him — they took their de- 
parture, and my husband and I had a merry laugh 
over the incidents of the day. It was rather an 
interesting interlude in our quiet life, and remoteness 
from the abolition storm that was hovering over the 
land. 

All the people I entertained were not queer. 
We had a house full always of gay, young people, 
young girls from the North that were my school- 
mates in New Haven, girls who were my play- 
mates, and the friends of my young ladyhood in 
New Orleans, fresh, bright, happy girls, who rode 
horseback, sang and danced and made merry all 
through the house. All are gone now. Only the 
sweet memory of them comes to me in my solitary 
day-dreams. 

208 



XXVIII 

A MONUMENT TO MAMMIES 

LET US have a memorial, before the last of 
us who had a black mammy passes away. 
We who still linger would love to see a 
granite monument to the memory of the dear mam- 
my who fostered our childhood. Our grandchildren, 
indeed our children, will never know the kind of 
mammies their ancestors were blessed with. 

I know of two only of the old stock of nurses and 
housekeepers left. They were grown women when 
Sherman marched through Georgia, destroying their 
old homes, laying waste the land, and Butler sat 
down in New Orleans, wreaking vengeance on their 
hapless masters, and scattering their little bands of 
servants to the four winds. These two mammies 
I wot of remained with their own white folks. The 
Georgia one lived in a family I visited, a faithful 
old woman, doing her utmost to fill a gap (and gaps 
were of constant occurrence) in any branch of house- 
hold duty. Mammy was a supernumerary after the 
children grew up, but when the new-fangled housc- 

209 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

maid swept her trailing skirts out of the premises, 
mammy filled her place till another of that same 
half-educated sort came. When cook flared up and 
refused to do her duty in the way to which she was 
called, mammy descended into the deserted kitchen. 

One day I overheard the son of that family, who 
was about to start to a Northern college, say: 
"Mammy, put on your Sunday black silk; I want 
you to go down the street with me; I am going to 
have your picture taken." "What fur, son?" "I 
want it with the rest of my family to put on my 
bureau at college." "Lord! son, you ought'en to 
hav' my black face to show to dem Yankees; den 
you'll tell 'em I'se your mammy." However, the 
pleased old darky, as black as her Sunday silk, had 
her picture taken just like "son" wanted. I have 
a copy of it now. God bless her! 

A family from the extreme South comes every 
summer to a quiet place in Connecticut and brings 
mammy to take care of the little ones. I doubt 
if they feel they could come without her. Mammy 
is pure black; no adulterated blood under that skin 
— black, flat-nosed and homely, but the children 
adore her, and she "makes them mind, too," she 
proudly tells you. Every boarder in that big house 
knows mammy, but I doubt if one of them knows 
her name; I do not. It warms my heart to shake 

2IO 



A MONUMENT TO MAMMIES 

hands with those two remnants of a dear past civi- 
lization, the only two I ever met. 

When a child I made frequent visits to my 
cousin, Judge Chinn's plantation, in West Baton 
Rouge. I believe that hospitable house has long 
since vanished into the river, with its store of 
pleasant memories. How I always, when I arrived 
there, had to run find mammy first thing, and 
how she folded me in her warm embrace and de- 
lighted my ears with, "How dis chile do grow." 
Every visitor at that grand, hospitable home knew 
mammy. She always stood back of the judge's 
chair, and with signals directed the young girls how 
to wait at table. She managed after the children 
grew up, married and settled (some of them set- 
tled, Creole fashion, in the home nest too) that 
whole big and mixed household, where another gen- 
eration of babies came to claim a portion of her 
love and care. Nobody thought to go to the judge 
or his wife for anything. "All applications," to use 
an office phrase, "made to mammy." She was 
always ready to point the way or to help one 
through it. 

Casually meeting Mrs. Chinn and inquiring of 
the various members of her family that from long 
absence I had lost sight of, "And mammy," I said. 
The dear old lady burst into tears. Mammy had 

211 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

died holding the hand of the sorrowing mistress, 
her last words, "My work is done. I tried to do 
my best," and God knows she did. 

We had a mammy in my mother's house when I 
was a wee little thing, and we children loved her 
right along all the week till Saturday night, when 
the ponderous woman brought the big washtub up- 
stairs and two pails of hot water. We hated mam- 
my then, for she had a heavy hand and a searching 
eye, and a rough wash rag full of soapsuds. Not a 
fold in the ear, nor a crease in the plump body es- 
caped her vigilance. I really think we were glad 
when we outgrew need of her assistance at those 
dreaded Saturday night's baths, and she went to 
other little lambs, in pastures new. 

When I went a bride to my husband's home, 
Charlotte, his old mammy, met us and proudly es- 
corted us within doors, where were fresh flowers and 
a blazing fire (it was long past midnight, and dread- 
fully stormy too), and every comfort prepared and 
ready for "the coming of the bride." I felt then and 
there mammy would be a comfort for me and a real 
help, and so she proved, in all my sunny life in the 
plantation home and in the dark days of the war, 
too. My Mammy Charlotte had complete charge 
of everything about the house. She had been thor- 
oughly trained by my husband's mother. She made 

212 



A MONUiVIENT TO MAMMIES 

the jellies and the pickles, the ice cream, the cakes, 
doing a little of everything to make our home com- 
fortable and happy. And often she remarked that 
no one in the house did more and had less to show 
for it at night than she did. That is a truth about 
many households, one does all the neglected things, 
and picks up all the loose threads. Guests were made 
to understand if they required anything, from a 
riding horse to a fresh stick on the fire, from a mint 
julep to a bedroom candle, they had only to call 
Charlotte. She was never beyond the reach of a 
summons, day or night. She was mammy to all the 
children of the house, and all the other children that 
floated in from other people's houses. It was Mam- 
my Charlotte who hurriedly secreted the spoons ( !) 
when a Federal cavalry company came prancing 
down the road toward our gates. It was mammy 
who ran to my bedside to whisper, *'Don't you get 
skeered, they does look like gentlemen;" and after 
they had taken a drink of water and trotted off 
again it was mammy back to say, "It's all 
right; they didn't say nothin' 'bout spoons." 
Even at that early date and that remote spot 
from Butler's headquarters the matter of spoons 
had been so freely and laughingly discussed 
that the sable crowd of witnesses that sur- 
rounded every household must have taken the 
15 213 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

idea that collecting spoons was "the chief end of 
man." 

I pity the little ones of to-day with no black mam- 
my of their very own to cuddle them to her warm 
bosom and comfort them, and tell them funny 
rhymes about "The Monkey and the Baboon's Sis- 
ter," to make them forget their griefs in a merry 
laugh. The high-falutin' nurses they have now, 
here to-day, gone to-morrow, without any anchor- 
age in our hearts and homes, are not and never 
could be made mammies like we of threescore years 
and ten were blessed with. 

Who of us that lived within a day's journey of 
Col. Hicky but remembers his Milly, the mammy 
of that grand, big household? The dear Colonel 
lived to see great-grandchildren grow up, and Milly 
mammied at least three generations at "Hope Es- 
tate." She was a famous nurse. Mind you, this 
was decades before trained nurses arrived on the 
stage. How many of us remember how tenderly 
and untiringly Milly nursed some of our invalids 
to health! Her services were tendered, and oh! 
how gratefully accepted. With a sad heart I recall 
a sick baby I nursed until Milly came and put me 
to bed and took the ailing child in her tender arms. 
For two days and nights unto the end she watched 
the little flickering spark. 

214 



A MONUMENT TO MAMMIES 

When Mr. Sidell removed his family to Wash- 
ington after his election to the United States Sen- 
ate, I traveled in their company several days. The 
children had their colored mammy to care for them. 
She had been raised in the Deslonde family, a trusted 
servant. I was struck with the system and care with 
which she managed her little charges from Mathilde, 
a girl in her teens, down to baby Johnny. She lived 
with them during those troublous times in Wash- 
ington, she accompanied the family to Paris, and 
I presume died there. Always dressed in a neat 
calico gown, a fichu and tig}wn, even in Paris she 
did not alter her dress nor wear another headgear 
than her own bandana. There's a mammy to im- 
mortalize! 

Then let us raise a monument to the mammies of 
the days that were. Quickly, too, before the last 
one of us who were crowned with such a blessing 
shall have passed away " 'mid the shadows that flee 
in the night." 



XXIX 

MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

THE Story of Mary Ann and Martha Ann 
and the red bonnet has been so often re- 
told to my children and grandchildren 
that every detail has been retained, and in its com- 
pleteness as I give it here, it is a bit of authentic 
family history "dressed up" as its hearers love it. 
"What kin we do, Ma'y Ann? I dun hear Miss 
Liza talkin' 'bout it agin, and 'lowin' it got to be 
found." The two little negroes sat under a wide- 
spreading pecan tree that scattered its shade and 
its late autumn nuts over the grassy lawn of a spa- 
cious Southern mansion. They crouched closely to- 
gether, heads touching, voices whispering and faces 
turned to the river road, their scanty linsey skirts 
drawn tightly over little black legs, so that no 
searching eye from the broad veranda could spy 
them. Mary Ann looked anxiously around, and, 
drawing her knotty, kinky head closer still to 
Martha's softer locks, whispered: "Mann Char- 
lotte gwine to clean out de L, and you know she'll 
go in dat room fust thing." 

2l6 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

Marthy sprang back with dilated eyes. 
"Ma'y Ann, it carnt stay dar; it's gotten to cum 
outen dar, oh Lordy! What did you put it dar in 
the fust place fur?" 

"I didn't put it dar." Ma'y Ann's eyes flashed. 
"You fotch it dar your own self, unner your apern; 
you sed it was yourn and Miss Ellen giv it to you." 

Marthy sprang to her feet. "Miss Ellen never 
giv me nothin' in her whole life." She shook her 
clenched fist in Ma'y Ann's face, then burst into 
tears. The stolen conference, like many another 
that had preceded it, was opened in a spirit of mu- 
tual conciliation, but as the interview progressed 
and interest waxed, the poor little negroes became 
fierce in their alarm, fast losing sight of the turpi- 
tude of the deed committed in common in the over- 
mastering anxiety of each one to shift the entire 
blame on the other. 

"Hush, gal, set down; I hear Marm Charlotte 
dis bery minit; she mustn't kotch me under dis here 
pecon tree agin. I was down here yisterday, tryin' 
to dig a hole where we's settin' now! I want ter 
berry de rotten thing. Marm Charlotte kotch'd me 
here, and she ax'd what I doin' and I 'low'd I was 
gitten pecons fur de turkeys, and she 'sponded she 
low'd ter tell me when to feed de turkeys." 

Marthy Ann slowly resumed her seat, taking care 
217 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to get well behind the pecan tree. She was ner- 
vously sobbing, "She's kept me — a — lookin' fur it 
— till I feared to go in — our — room — feared to find 
it — a settin' on de baid — Oh, Ma'y Ann, what made 
you take hit?" 

Ma'y Ann's eyes flashed fire. She was of the 
heroic sort, and by no wise melted by Marthy's 
lamentations and tears. 

"I didn't take hit; you tuck hit, and you know 
you did; you's de biggest rascal on de place. You 
does a thing, den you goes whinin' and cryin' 'bout 
hit. I does a thing, I jist 'sponds fur hit and sticks 
hit out." 

Marthy wiped her eyes on the linsey skirt and 
tried to Imbibe some of her companion's courage. 

"Well, Ma'y Ann, you put it whar tis and ghostes 
cum out ev'ry night and ties me wid de long, red 
strings." 

"No ghostes cum arter me," said Ma'y Ann, 
bridling up. "Dat shows you put it dar your own 
self." 

"We ain't got no time ter talk and fuss; we got 
ter find a place to put hit now. God knows it 
cums atter me ev'y night, and las' night de debbel 
had it on, Ma'y Ann. I seed him; he jist strutted 
all around de room wid it on his hald and de rib- 
bons was tied to his horns." 

218 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

"Oh, Lordy, Marthy, is he got hit now?" The 
terrified child sprang to her feet and gazed dis- 
tractedly up the tree. "Marthy, we kin fling hit 
up in dis tree; won't de debbil let hit stay in de 
crotch?" 

The strained eyes eagerly searched for a shel- 
tering limb that would catch and conceal the thing, 
the ghost of which would not lay, day or night. 
Marm Charlotte had never relaxed in her search, 
in bureaus, and armchairs, behind hanging dresses, 
in the big cedar chest, among the blankets, upon top 
shelves, in old bandboxes, in trunks, over bed testers, 
downstairs in china closets, among plates and dishes, 
under parlor sofas and over library bookcases. 
Ma'y Ann and Marthy Ann had no rest. They 
made believe to search the garden, after the house 
had been pulled to pieces, going down among the 
artichoke bushes and the cherokee rose hedge that 
smothered the orchard fence, wishing and praying 
somebody might find it in one of those impossible 
places all torn by squirrels or made into nests by 
birds. 

Christmas, with its turkeys and capons fattened 
on pecan nuts, its dances and flirtations in the wide 
halls of the big house, its weddings and breakdowns 
in the negro quarters, had come and gone. The 

219 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

whirr of the ponderous mill had ceased; the towering 
chimney of the sugar house no longer waved its 
plume of smoke by day nor scattered its showers of 
sparks by night. Busy spiders spun nets over big, 
dusty kettles, and hung filmy veils from the tall 
rafters. Keen-eyed mice scampered over the floors 
and scuffled in the walls of the deserted building 
whence the last hogshead of sugar and barrel of 
molasses had been removed, and the key turned in 
the great door of the sugar house. Tiny spears of 
cane were sprouting up all over the newly plowed 
fields. Drain and ditches were bubbling over, and 
young crawfish darting back and forth in their spark- 
ling waters. The balmy air of early summer, 
freighted with odors of honeysuckle and cape 
jessamine, and melodious with the whistle and 
trill of mocking birds, floated into the open 
windows and doors of the plantation dwelling. 
The shadowy crepe myrtle tree scattered crimpy 
pink blossoms over the lawn. Lady Banks 
rose vines festooned the trellises and scram- 
bled in wild confusion over the roof of the 
well house, waving its golden radiance in the 
soft, sunny air. Cherokee and Chickasaw hedges, 
with prodigal luxuriance, covered the rough 
wooden fences, holding multitudes of pink and 
white blossoms in thorny embrace, and sheltering 

220 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

the secret nests of roaming turkey hens and their 
wild-eyed broods. 

"Well, Levi, you'se dun your job, and it wus 
a big one, too." 

"Yes, William, I whitewashed as much as ten 
miles o' fencing, and all de trees in de stable lot, 
besides de cabins and de chicken houses." 

"Ten miles o' fencing," replied William doubt- 
fully. "I didn't 'low dere wuz dat much on de whole 
plantation. Why, dey call hit ten miles from here 
to Manchac, and 'bout ten from here to Cohite." 

"I mean ten miles in and out; about five miles 
one side de fence and five miles de odder." 

"Oh ! that-a-way," said William dubiously. 
"Charlotte, give Mr. Stucker another dodger." 

The speakers were two negro men, one in the 
shirt sleeves and long apron that betokened the 
household cook, the other in the shiny, shabby 
"store clothes" of the town darky. They sat at the 
kitchen table, in front of a window commanding 
a view of newly whitewashed fences and trees. Eti- 
quette required that William should play the role of 
host, on this, the last morning of the whitewasher's 
stay. Charlotte had laid the cloth and placed the 
plates and knives for two, and served the fried bacon 
and hot corn dodgers to Mr. Levi Stucker, a free 
man, who had a house of his own and a wife to 

221 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

wait on him and in view of this dignity and state was 
deemed entitled to unusual consideration. 

"Lemme ask you, Charlotte," said Stucker, care- 
fully splitting his dodger, and sopping the hot 
crumbs in the bacon gravy, "is you missed ary thing 
outen de yard on dese premises? Caze I heard 
dem two little gals havin' a big talk in dat room 
next to me last night; you knows dat's a mighty 
weaky boardin' 'tween dose rooms and a pusson 
don't have to listen to hear. I bin hearin' 'em 
movin' 'bout and a whisperin' most ginerally every 
night when dey ought most likely to be asleep. Las' 
night a old owl was a squinchin' on dat mulberry 
tree by de winder, and de shutter hit slammed. Dat 
woke dem gals up; it was atter midnight; dey was 
skeert, one on 'em begin to blubber and sed de deb- 
bil was dar to kotch 'em. From de way dey talked — 
(but It was mystlfyin', I tell you) — I 'lowed In my 
mind dem gals had stole somethin', I couldn't gather 
what, fur dey didn't name no specials, but sure's you 
born dey's up to somethin', and skeered to death 
'bout its bein' foun' out." 

Charlotte stopped on her way to the frying pan 
with widening eyes and uplifted fork, and listened 
attentively, with an occasional jerk of the head to- 
ward William. 

"Jist tell me," pursued Levi, "if you 'low dose 

222 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

gals to have de run of de quarters, caze dey gits 
mischief in dere heads if dey run wid quarter nig- 
gers." 

"No, sir," responded the woman emphatically, 
"dey never goes down dar; I'm keerful 'bout dat — 
onreason'ble keerful; no, sir, if I was to let 'em 
have the run o' dat quarter lot dere would never be 
a cold biskit nor a cup o' clabber in dis house de 
minit atter you put 'em outen your hands. No, sir, 
Mr. Stucker, if old Hannah, or ary of de sick nig- 
gers down dar wants anything from dis house dey 
got to send one of their own little niggers wid de 
cup or de pan, and I pintedly gives 'em what's 
needed; dere's nuff work for Ma'y Ann and Marthy 
Ann 'bout dis house 'dout dey visitin' at de quar- 
ters and waitin' on quarter niggers. I bet, dough, 
dey's bin in some mischief I ain't had time to ferret 
out." 

After a pause she continued, "And you say you 
think dey done stole somethin'?" 

"Yes," answered Stucker, pushing back his chair 
and rising from the table; "yes, I understand some- 
thin' of dat natur', if you has missed ary thing." 

"We did miss dat currycomb what William comb 
his har wid; it was a bran new, kinder stiff one, and 
he missed it last Sunday," replied Charlotte." 

"Dat jist fallen outen de winder, it warn't lost," 
223 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

interrupted William, who had been watching for a 
favorable opportunity to join the conversation. 

"Yes, dem spawns foun' hit outdoors, when I 
tole 'em I'd skin 'em if it wasn't perjuced," said 
Charlotte, turning to William, who thereupon re- 
lapsed into acquiescent silence. 

"It warn't no currycomb dey was talkin' 'bout 
last night," said Stucker, jerking first one leg then 
the other to free his shaggy breeches of dodger 
crumbs. 

"Jist hold on a minit," said Charlotte, stepping 
to the kitchen door and shouting, "Ma'y Ann and 
Marthy Ann, whar's you?" 

"Here I is, ma'am, I's comin', yes 'em," was re- 
sponded from an upper porch, and the two little 
darkies scuffled down the back stairs. 

"Jist you two run down to de orchard whar I 
kin see you all de time, hear me? All de time, 
and look fur dat Dominiker hen's nest. I hear her 
cacklin' down dar, and don't neither of you dar' cum 
back till you find it. If you cum back 'fore I call 
you, I'll pickle you well. Run!" 

Two little guinea blue cotton skirts whisked 
through a gap in the rose hedge and emerged in 
the deep grass of the orchard, before Charlotte 
turned back into the kitchen, satisfied they were at 
a distance, and still under her observation. Levi 

224 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

Stucker meanwhile, having carefully tied his two 
weeks' earnings in the corner of his red cotton hand- 
kerchief, and shared his last "chaw" of tobacco with 
William, swung his bundle from the end of his long 
whitewash pole and departed, with the shambling, 
shuffling gait of the typical Southern negro. 

"I'm gwine upstairs, William, and I'll ramshackle 
dat room till I find out what's dar," said the woman. 
She slowly mounted the stairs, down which the two 
culprits had so lately descended with flying feet, 
and turned into a small room on the servants' gal- 
lery. She glanced around the bare apartment the 
two little negroes called their own. There was a 
battered trunk against the wall with a damaged 
cover and no fastening of any kind, a rickety chair 
and a bed. Charlotte tore the linsey dresses, home- 
spun petticoats and check aprons from nails behind 
the door, shaking and critically examining each ar- 
ticle. In the trunk she found remnants of rag dolls 
and broken toys and bits of quilt pieces that had been 
their playthings for time out of mind. There were 
no pockets to examine, no locks to pry open. "Dey 
don't need no pockets to carry dere money in, and no 
locked up trunks fur dere jewelry," Charlotte al- 
ways said. It was her habit to go in and out their 
room freely, to see that it was kept in some kind 
of order and the bed regularly made up. The door 

225 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of the room was always open, and no means afforded 
for securing it on the inside. Notwithstanding 
these precautions of Charlotte, who practically ac- 
cepted the doctrine of infant depravity, there was a 
mystery concealed in that room that at intervals al- 
most throttled the two little negroes, and, strange 
to say, with all the woman's vigilance, had slum- 
bered months within sound of her voice. She rap- 
Idly threw the clothes on the window sill, turned the 
trunk inside out and pushed its battered frame into 
the middle of the floor. 

Nothing now remained to be searched but the 
plain unpalnted bed. It was neatly made up, the 
coarse brown blankets securely tucked in all around. 
Charlotte whisked that off and dragged after It the 
cotton mattress which rested on a "sack bottom," 
secured by interlacing cords to the bed frame. 
There was revealed the hidden secret! Crushed 
quite flat and sticking to the sacking, long under 
pressure of the cotton mattress and the tossing and 
tumbling children, what trick of dainty beauty lay 
before her? It was so crumpled and smothered, 
torn and ragged, soiled with fleeces of cotton lint 
that had sifted through the bed seams, and covered 
with dust and grime that but for glimpses of Its 
original form and color here and there It would 
never have been recognized. Charlotte snatched It 

226 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

out and fled to the porch to see if Ma'y Ann and 
Marthy Ann were still down in the orchard. There 
they lay, prone in the soft grass, happy as only 
children, and black ones at that, can be. Four little 
ebony legs kicked up in the air, and the sound of 
merry shouts reached Charlotte's ear. 

"You'll fly dem laigs to sum purpose yit, fur 
I lay I'll git Marse Jim to giv you a breakdown 
dat'U make dem laigs tired," she said to herself. 
"You jist lay dar," she muttered, as she descended 
the steps. "You needn't waste your time (it's a 
awful short one) lookin' for aigs dat de ole Dom- 
iniker ain't never laid yit." 

The deep window of the library was wide open, 
the sash thrown up and an easy lounging chair drawn 
to the veranda, on which reposed the towering form 
of the planter, lazily smoking a cigar, and looking 
off upon the broad, swift river at a passing steam- 
boat, floating so high on its swelling waves that Its 
deck was almost on a line with the top of the grass- 
covered levee. Its passengers, thronging the 
"guards" in the fragrance of a fine morning, seemed 
almost near enough to the spectator on shore to 
respond to a friendly nod of the head. The delicate 
lady of the mansion sat silently within, also watching 
the passing boat. 

227 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

"I see some one waving a paper from the Belle 
Creole. I believe that's Green. Yes, he has tied 
a handkerchief to his crutch, and is waving that." 

The planter rose as he spoke and stooci for a mo- 
ment for a better view. "Here, give me something, 
quick, to wave back at him." 

At this critical moment Charlotte appeared on the 
scene. "This will do," he exclaimed, catching the 
velvet wreck from the astonished woman's grasp 
and tossing it aloft, holding it by the long strings. 

"Lord! jist see Marse Jim wid dat bonnet I dun 
foun', dat you lost 'fore grinding time. Miss Liza, 
and whar you spec it was? Right onder Ma'y 
Ann's bed." 

"My bonnet! for pity's sake, only look at it. 
Look!" 

"It don't look much like a bonnet. It's more like 
a red rag to make the turkeys gobble," replied the 
master, disdainfully, throwing it to Charlotte. 

"My bonnet I paid Olympe twenty dollars for, 
and never wore it but once; see the satin strings! 
And just look at the cape at the back! And the 
feather poppies !" 

Charlotte straightened herself up, holding the 
crumpled bonnet and turning it around to show its 
proportions. It was of the "skyscraper" shape, 
made on stiff millinette, that is more easily broken 

228 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

than bent. Mashed sideways, it showed in its flat- 
tened state as much of the satin hning as of velvet 
cover. 

"Levi Stucker ain't no fool. He tole me and 
William he heard Ma'y Ann and Marthy Ann whis- 
perin' and plannin' in dere room nights till he was 
sure dey was a hatchin' mischief, ef dey hadn't al- 
ready hatched more snakes dan dey could kiver, so 
I 'low'd I'd go and ramshackle dat room o' theirn, 
and onder de baid, Marse Jim, 'twixt de sackin' and 
de cotton baid, way onder de very middle, I found 
dis bonnet what I bin lookin' fur ever since grindin' 
time. Now, Marse Jim, dere ain't no use in talkin' 
to dem gals; dere ain't no use in readin' no cater- 
kism to 'em, nor in Miss Liza telling no more tales 
to 'em 'bout dat liar Anifera, or sum sich name. 
No use in whippin' 'em, nudder. If I'se whipped 
dem two niggers once fur not lookin' fur dis bonnet 
when I sont 'em to, I'se whipped 'em forty times. 
Dat didn't make 'em find what they hid demselves, 
and it ain't going to do 'em no good now. Marse 
Jim, you jist got to skeer de very life outen 'em, 
and send 'em to de canefields. Dey is rascals and 
rogues." 

"Well, Charlotte," he responded, "put the bonnet 
on this side, out of sight, and bring those children 
here. I'll see what I can do." 
16 229 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

As Charlotte left he turned to his tender-hearted 
wife and told her, "It is important those little ne- 
groes should have a lesson that would be of some 
use. Charlotte is right on the subject of moral sua- 
sion as far as those little imps are concerned, so 
don't let your kindness and sympathy interfere with 
my conduct of the case. Keep in the background, 
and I will give them a lesson they will not soon 
forget." 

"I can't imagine what could have induced those 
children to make way with that bonnet," said Miss 
Liza, meditatively, as she looked at the crumpled 
wreck on the floor. 

"Perhaps mischief, perhaps accident. The thing 
is to make them acknowledge the theft. Entrenched 
as they are behind a whole barricade of lies and de- 
ceit, the thing is to make them capitulate," replied 
the husband. 

"Cum right in; don't be modest now. Marse Jim 
sont fur you," was heard in Charlotte's bantering 
tone, as she appeared in the doorway, half-leading, 
half-dragging the reluctant culprits, who already be- 
gan to sniff a coming battle. With some difficulty 
she marshaled them before the master and 
stood close at hand ready to offer moral sup- 
port if the court of inquiry gave any signs of 
weakening, or to cut oft retreat on the part of 

230 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

the little darkies if they became too alarmed to 
"stand fire." 

"Well, Mary and Martha, where have you 
been?" inquired Marse Jim, in his blandest and most 
conciliatory tone. 

"Down in de orchard lookin' for aigs fur Marm 
Charlotte." "And we was findin' some when she 
hollowed fur us to cum to de house." "De Domi- 
nicker hen got nest in de haige." "She's settin', 
too." 

"Hold on, hold on, don't both of you talk at 
once. I didn't ask about the hen's nest. Have you 
been all over the orchard in the hot sun?" 

"Yes, sir." "Yes, sir, we goes anywhar fur 
Marm Charlotte." "She sont us." "Yes, sir, she 
sont us fur aigs." "An' we was findin' sum too." 
"Dat Dominicker hen " 

With uplifted restraining hand he said: "Hush, 
don't both talk at once. Let me talk some. Did you 
go away down there without your bonnet?" 

"We ain't got no bonnet." "Me and Ma'y Ann 
don't wear bonnets, Marse Jim." 

"Yes, you have a bonnet. Isn't this your bon- 
net?" the master said, in his quiet, inquiring tone, 
holding up before their bulging eyes the dilapi- 
dated wreck that they had not dared look at in all 
the months they had buried it out of sight. Ma'y 

231 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Ann" steadfastly turned her face away from the ghost. 
She bit her Hps, but uttered not a word. 

"No, Marse Jim — I — I — er, Marse Jim, I feel 
sick, sick," stammered Marthy, as she trembled so 
she almost fell. 

"Sick! Give me your hand." She quickly re- 
covered, and clasped the tawny paws behind her 
back. "Give me your hand; let me feel your pulse." 
Reluctantly she proffered the hand. "There, now," 
he said, letting the limp little hand fall to her side. 
"You feel chilly, don't you? Go sit down on that 
step." Marthy sidled slowly away, tears welling 
her eyes and her whole frame shaken with suppressed 
sobs. 

"Stop dat cryin' ; nobody ain't doin' nuthin' to 
you; stop dat foolishness and listen to what 
Marse Jim is a sayin' to you two onreasonable 
rapscallions," said Charlotte, in a severe tone. 
She held Mary Ann (who was making ready 
to fly at the first opportunity) by the back of 
her neckband. 

"Let Martha alone, Charlotte, she is weakening; 
we'll talk about the bonnet to Mary Ann, she 
knows." 

"No, Marse Jim, I 'clar I never see dat bonnet 
in all my life; I 'clar I never did. I 'clar " 

"Hush," said the master in a stern voice, "let 
232 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

me ask a question or two, and only answer what 
I ask." 

"Tell de truth, too," ejaculated Charlotte, "on- 
less you want de debbil to kotch you." 

"Give me your hand." The child clutched at her 
cotton skirt with both hands. He reached out, 
quietly and forcibly took one skinny little black paw 
in his firm grasp. Drawing the shrinking, reluctant 
child toward him, he fixed his eyes upon her averted 
face. "Now look me right in the eye; everybody 
does that to people who are talking to them; look 
me in the eye. What made you hide that bonnet? 
Look at me when I am talking to you." 

"I didn't neber see dat bonnet b'fore. I 
'clar " 

"Stop, look at me; don't look at Martha, she's 
better." The child's eyes dropped. "Don't look 
at the floor, look me in the eye." 

"Marse Jim, slap her; make her look at you." 

"Be quiet, Charlotte; she's going to tell, I want 
to help her," replied the imperturbable inquisitor 
in his blandest tones. Still holding the reluctant 
hand and drawing the figure more closely to him, 
he said, "You say you never saw this bonnet? How 
came it in your bed?" 

There was a long pause. The little negro at last 
gathered herself up, and, with a gleam of inspira- 

^32, 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

tion, exclaimed: "Marse Jim. de rats put it dar — 
de rats runs all over dat floor nights. Me and 
Marthy Ann jist hears 'em jist toting things all 
around. Rats put it dar, Marse Jim, big rats." 

"Dat's a lie," said Charlotte, positively. "Nary 
rat on dat floor. JNIarse Jim, you jist foolin' way 
your time on dese niggers." 

The baflled master turned toward the crouching 
figure on the steps. She was still trembling, her face 
buried in her hands. He saw she was ready to con- 
fess, but he was determined Mary Ann should ac- 
knowledge also. 

"Have you a mammy, Mary Ann?" he inquired. 

"No, Marse Jim; I ain't got no mammy; I ain't 
never had no mammy, and my daddy, he's daid, 
and I ain't " 

"Hush, I didn't ask all that. If you haven't 
a mammy there's no one to care if you die. I am 
sure I don't want little girls round the house that 
steal and lie. Nobody else would have you ; nobody 
would buy you, and I can't keep you here. It's come 
to a pretty pass when a lady can't lay her bonnet 
on the bed without you two little imps taking it and 
hiding it for months, and lying about it right straight 
along. You have no mammy to cry for you, and I 
don't want you, and Miss Liza don't want you. 
What can be done with you?" 

234 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

Martha sobbed, on the veranda step, and Mary 
looked defiant, but no response came to that re- 
peated inquiry. After a pause, Mary Ann bridled 
up; the matter in question seemed to be taking a 
broader range; the bonnet seemed to be merging in 
generalities, and might in time sink into the other 
question of what can be done with them. Martha's 
courage also revived, so she could respond to the 
inquiry of her parentage. 

"I ain't neber had no daddy, and my mammy 
she's married to long Phil now." 

The planter shifted his legs, looked abroad in a 
meditative way, then turned to the charge. 

'Well, now, you girls want to tell us all you know 
about this," holding up again before them the bat- 
tered brim and crushed poppies and long, dingy rib- 
bons. Martha buried her face again, and Mary 
was suddenly interested in the gambols of a squirrel 
in the pecan tree. Neither culprit would look at 
the evidence of their guilt. "What will become of 
you? I can't keep you and nobody will buy a rogue; 
nobody wants you." 

"My mammy wants me, Marse Jim," whimpered 
the scared Martha. 

"No, your mother is Nancy, isn't she? She's 
a good woman and don't want a rogue and a liar 
tied to her all her days." Another long pause. 

235 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

"Come here, Martha, both of you stand by Char- 
lotte and hold her hands. I will give you one more 
chance. Which — one — of — you — stole — that bon- 
net? Did both of you do it together? Who hid 
it? What made you do it?" There was a pause 
between the questions, not one word of response. 
Martha's tears dropped on her little naked foot, 
while Mary Ann looked vacantly at the nimble 
squirrel in apparent indifference, not a muscle of her 
face giving any evidence of emotion. 

"Marse Jim," said Charlotte, whose impatience 
increased as she saw signs of action on the part of 
the inquisitor. "Marse Jim, what you gwine to do? 
It's no use er whippin' dese gals; dere hides is like 
cowhide and whippin' ain't no good noways fur 
liars. Killin' is good for such." 

The planter rose from his chair, straightened his 
tired limbs and kicked the bonnet out of his way. 
"Bring them along, Charlotte. I'll see what I 
can do." 

Charlotte, with a firm grasp of each child, fol- 
lowed the tall leader, who, as he turned into the hall, 
tossed a nod and a significant wink to his wife. She 
obediently rose and followed. In all the interview 
the mistress had remained a passive but interested 
spectator, feeling sure that at a critical moment a 
signal from her husband would afford her an op- 

236 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

portunity to intervene. The master led his followers 
straight to the well-house, under whose vine-clad ar- 
bor reposed the dripping bucket, attached by a wind- 
lass to an endless chain. 

"I think it best to drown them," he quietly re- 
marked. The little group filled the arbor. William 
and Billy, the gardener; Delia, the laundress; Lucy, 
the maid; Sawny, the "woodpile boy" and Oliver, 
who "went wid de buggy," attracted by the spectacle, 
gathered around the outskirts. The story of the find- 
ing of the long lost bonnet had spread over the 
yard and premises; fragments had even wafted to 
"the quarters," with the mysterious rapidity and 
certainty that always attended a household event in 
the old plantation days. 

"Mary Ann first," said the master, as catching 
her suddenly and firmly by the neckband of her 
dress and imprisoning her struggling legs by wrap- 
ping her skirts tightly around them, he held her over 
the well-hole, head a little down. The struggles 
and writhings of the child were of no avail in the 
grasp of the strong man. "I want you to tell the 
truth and promise never to tell another lie before 
I drop you down this well." The child squirmed 
and screamed in the relentless clutch, swearing en- 
tire ignorance of the whole matter. Charlotte felt 
she must pile on the agony, so she saw "de debbil 

217 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

down dar wld his pitchfork, ready to ketch her." 
That vision was too much for the now thoroughly 
alarmed little darky. 

"I tuck it, Marse Jim, I tuck it," she screamed. 

"Will you ever steal again?" still holding her 
over the well, where in her own little reflection in 
the placid water she was convinced to her dying 
day she had seen "de debhil." 

"Neber, neber, 'fore God, neber agin." 

"Never tell another lie if I let you off?" 

"Neber, Marse Jim; neber's long as I lib. Please 
the Lord and Miss Liza, I'll be a good little nigger; 
neber lie agin if you'll lemme off dis time." 

While that harrowing scene was being enacted 
with the most determined and refractory of the lit- 
tle witches, and the spectators on the outskirts were 
convulsed with laughter — every one of them had 
at one time or another been suspected of the theft — 
Martha, the tearful, was on her knees, holding de- 
spairingly to Miss Liza's skirts and imploring her 
"Jist to save me dis time, I'll be good, I'll neber 
tell anoder lie. I'se got a mammy dat will cry fur 
me, and I don't want ter die. Oh! save me frum 
de debbil," she screamed, when Charlotte's voice 
proclaimed him at the bottom of the well. "Don't 
let de debbil have your good little nigger." 

Confessions and promises being obtained, Mary 
238 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

Ann was placed upon her feet. Four little black, 
legs flew down the backyard; two little guinea-blue 
skirts flipped over the cowyard fence and two little 
dusky spots vanished in the distance. William called 
after them to "clip it 'fore de debbil gits outen dat 
well." Charlotte held her sides with outbursts of 
laughter that had been held in painful restraint. 

"De debbil done skeer 'em more en Marse Jim," 
Sawny remarked, as he shambled back to the wood- 
pile. 

"I think, my dear," said the planter, linking his 
arm into that of his wife and returning to the li- 
brary with her, "I think those children had a lesson 
that may last them all their lives. They had to be 
scared into a confession." 

"I hated to see them badgered," she replied. "I 
dropped a few tears over Martha myself — per- 
haps," with a smile, "she thought I was scared too." 

Charlotte came in and picked up the wreck. 
"Miss Liza, I'se goin' to take dis bonnet, jist as it 
is, all tousled up and mashed and I'm gwine to 
make Ma'y Ann war it one day and Marthy Ann 
de next clean till dey gits sick o' bonnets; dey shall 
war it till de chillen come home Sat-day. I 'spose 
dere'll be sum laffin' done when de chillen sees Ma'y 
Ann wid dat bonnet tied on her haid." 



239 



SOCIAL lAVK IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Another winter had come and gone, and June 
was again filling the old plantation with its intoxicat- 
ing odors and delicious melody. i'he little room 
on tile back porch was darkened bv a hea\y curtain 
at the only window. A table drawn up by the rough 
wooden bed, made gay by a patchwork quilt, held 
a lew medicine bottles, a cup and spoon; also a 
tumbler ot pink and white roses. I'he quiet mistress 
moved about noiselessly, occasionally putting her 
cool hand upon the brow o( the little sick negro, 
or geiul\ stroking tlie thin, black lingers that lay 
listlessly upon the bright coverlet. 

"Miss Liza, whar Ma'y Ann?" The lady turned 
her face from the questioner. After a moment's 
hesitation she replied, cheerfully: "She's all right, 
Martha." 

"Miss Liza, whar is she? Whar Ma'y 
Ann?" 

"She's down by the quarters now," was the un- 
satisfactory response. The weary patient closed 
her eves for a few moments, but it was evident that 
with the first consciousness, following a severe ill- 
ness, the child's thoughts turned to her old com- 
panion. 

"She ain't bin here sence T was tuk sick." After 
a pause, "1 want ter talk to Ma'y Ann 'bout sum- 
thin'." 

240 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

"Tell me," said the mistress, soothingly, "what 
it was you wanted to see Mary for." 

Both the little negroes had heen ill of scarlet 
fever. The children of the household had not 
been allowed for weeks to come home for their 
Saturday holidays. Martha fell ill first, and Mary 
was removed into the room formerly occupied by 
Levi Stucker, where she soon fell a victim to the 
disease. The mistress and Charlotte only were 
allowed to minister to the invalids. Mary, the ro- 
bust one of the two, the more mischievous, the one 
apparently better equipped for a struggle with dis- 
ease, succumbed, after a few days of delirium. The 
busy hands were stilled, the flying feet arrested, the 
voluble tongue silenced, at the touch of the Angel 
of Death. The little body was carried past the 
"quarters" and beyond, to the negroes' "burying 
ground," where it lay in peaceful shadows of the 
trees the romping children loved so well. Martha 
lingered long on the mysterious border, fitfully fight- 
ing an apparently hopeless battle, the more tenderly 
and faithfully nursed by Mammy Charlotte, as the 
warm-hearted, childless woman realized the frail 
tenure of life held by the little negro whom she 
had ruled in varying moods of sternness and 
tenderness, untempered with judgment. With 
the fretful peevishness of convalescence, the sick 

241 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

child whined repeated desires to know "Whar 
Ma'y Ann?" 

"What is it you want to tell Mary Ann to-day, 
when she is not here? Can't you tell me?" said 
the patient watcher. 

"I jist want ter see her; Fse gwine ter tell you 
'bout dat bonnet, Miss Liza, and she ain't here, and 
I mout die; sometimes folkses dies of broke laigs, 
and my laigs is broke. I want Ma'y Ann ter know 
I ain't goin' outen dis world wid dat bonnet on my 
soul." 

The mistress drew closer to the bedside, stroked 
and patted the attenuated hand in a soothing way 
to quiet and compose the restless invalid. 

"Maybe it's jist as good Ma'y Ann ain't here. 
Miss Liza. I kin tell de tale better'n when she is 
here to jine in." After a pause, apparently to mar- 
shal her thoughts more clearly, the child proceeded: 
"Dat time Miss Ellen cum here, she tuk outen her 
trunk a red bonnet, and she sed she had two on 'em 
jist alike, dat her chillen had wore out, and she 
fotched 'em fur me and Ma'y Ann. I was in dar 
and seed de bonnet, and you tuk hit, don't you 
'member. Miss Liza? You tuk hit and sed no, Ma'y 
Ann and me had no use fur bonnets, and you know'd 
two pore little white gals at your church dat didn't 
have none, and you was goin' ter give 'em to dem. 

242 



MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN 

I went out and tole Ma'y Ann all 'bout hit, and she 
'low'd if we had bonnets we cud go to church too. 
Well, we talked tergedder 'bout dose bonnets, and 
we plan we'd take 'em ennyhow, fust time we seed 
'em. Well, one night Ma'y Ann runned right in 
here, in dat very door. I was in here den. I shet 
de door and stood against it, and onder her apern 
she had de bonnet. She didn't find only one, but 
she grabbed dat. I tole her dat was the bery one 
Miss Ellen took outen her trunk, and me and Ma'y 
Ann, we tried it on our haids, 'fore dat bery piece 
o' lookin' glass stickin' on de wall dere, and we 
'greed ter watch till we kotch de udder one, so we 
hid it in dat trunk dar, behind you, Miss Liza, and 
ev'ry day we tried hit on. I want ter tell you all 
'bout hit 'fore Ma'y Ann gits back frum de quar- 
ters. I dun know how long we kep' hit in dat trunk, 
ontil one day dere was a awful fuss, eberybody 
skeered up, lookin' fur your bonnet, dat was 
missin'. Me and Ma'y Ann was glad. We couldn't 
find one of our bonnets now your'n wuz gone, too." 

"Didn't you know you had taken my bonnet?" 
said the mistress, who was at last seeing through 
the mystery. 

"Jist let me tell you de whole thing. Miss Liza. 
I bin layin' here long time thinkin' de straight uv 
hit, so Ma'y Ann can't bodder me when I telled it 

243 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to you. Ma'y Ann is dat sondaclous she most make 
you b'lieve anythin'. No, Miss Liza, we never 
thought dat till one day I hear Miss Ellen say how 
nice dem red bonnets she brung did look on de 
Quiggins gals at church. Den Marm Charlotte, 
she begun agin 'bout your bonnet bein' missed and 
she searchin' fur hit all de time, and I hear her tell 
Sawny it wuz red and had black flowers on hit. Me 
and Ma'y Ann took de bonnet outen de trunk dat 
night and dere wuz de black flowers, jist like she 
sed, den we know'd you had give Miss Ellen's bon- 
nets to the Quigginses, and Ma'y Ann had stole 
your'n. We hefted dis baid and put de bonnet under 
hit, and, please Gord, Miss Liza, I neber seed dat 
bonnet agin till Marse Jim shuck hit at us dat day." 

"Why didn't you come tell me what you had done, 
and why you had done it, when you first found it 
out?" 

"Miss Liza, we was afeerd. Marm Charlotte 
kep' sayin' whoever had dat bonnet wud be hung, 
and de odder negroes talked back. Thank de Lord, 
dey never seed hit, so Ma'y Ann and me didn't dar 
let on." 

"Didn't you expect it would be found out some 
day?" 

"Yes'em, I 'spec we did." 



XXX 

WHEN LEXINGTON WON THE RACE 

EVERY Kentucky woman loves a horse, and 
when Lexington was entered in the great 

State stake in 1854 a crowd of the creme 
de la creme of the Blue Grass country clamored to 
be present at the race. The St. Charles Hotel, then 
in the hands of those genial hosts, Messrs. Hall and 
Hildreth, was crowded for the event, beyond its 
capacity, for when that Kentucky contingent of 
women, unheralded and unexpected, swarmed into 
its broad parlor and halls, even the servants' quar- 
ters, so near the roof that the only light admitted 
was skylight, were put into requisition. There was 
enough Blue Grass blood in my family to compel a 
rush to the city, and we had a "sky parlor," right 
next to the one occupied by Gen. John H. Morgan 
(simply "John" then. He won his spurs and title 
a decade or so later) and his Kentucky wife. It 
took us "forever and a day" to mount the stairs to 
our roosts, and we were so tired when we arrived 
that we actually found the quarters acceptable. 

17 245 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

All the Breckinrldges, Wards, Flournoys, John- 
sons and Hunts in Kentucky were more or less finan- 
cially interested in the superb racer. Those who 
did not own one drop of Lexington's blood, nor one 
hair of his tail, "put their money" on the horse, and 
therewith a financial interest was created. Every 
man, it seemed, in the place, that could spare the 
time, wanted to see the great race. "Lee Count," 
as a good many Kentuckians call Le Comte, was 
the most prominent rival of their boasted and be- 
loved Lexington, and he showed mettle that aston- 
ished even those blind partisans, and added zest to 
the wagers. Ladies had never been in evidence at 
a horse race in Louisiana. The bare idea was a 
shock to the Creole mind, that dominated and con- 
trolled all the fashionable, indeed, all the respect- 
able, minds in New Orleans at that day. But the 
Kentucky belles had minds of their own. Every mor- 
tal one of them felt a personal interest, and a per- 
sonal pride, and a personal ambition in that Ken- 
tucky horse, though probably not ten out of the 
scores who rushed to see him race had ever seen 
him before, and when he did appear on the pad- 
dock he had to be pointed out to those enthusiastic 
admirers. 

What a host of dashing, high-bred, blue-blooded 
Kentucky women swarmed the parlors, halls, ro- 

246 



WHEN LEXINGTON WON THE RACE 

tunda of that, the finest hotel in all the land! How 
they talked, In the soft. Southern accent, so pecu- 
liarly their own! How they laughed! How they 
moved about, seemingly knowing everybody they 
met. How they bet! Gloves, fans, money, too, 
on their horse, when they found any one in all the 
crowd that was not a "Lexington horse" man. Those 
bright women dominated everything in their enthu- 
siasm. I recall a host of them. 

There was a lamentable scarcity of conveyances. 
Those Kentucky people who had never felt the lack 
of vehicles and horses, had apparently made small 
provision for travel to the course, so at the moment 
of departure, when a large party was almost driven 
to despair, Messrs. Hall and Hildreth ordered out 
the hotel stage, which was one of the "nine-passen- 
ger" type. A nine-passenger coach, one of the kind 
that was in vogue in the days of Pickwick, afforded 
seats inside for nine persons, and could accommo- 
date as many outside as chose to pile on. The ce- 
lerity with which those Kentucky women filled that 
coach and the Kentucky men covered the top was a 
sight worth seeing. No doubt when that stage rat- 
tled and bumped over the cobblestones, en route to 
Metaire, many a cautious Creole mamma made her 
innocent mam'zelles repair to the backyard while 
she hastily closed the shutters. It was like a cir- 

247 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

cus van, though no circus had ever paraded those 
decorous streets. 

Richard Tenbroeck (also a Kentuckian), who 
was associated in the management of the course, 
was on hand to receive the merry crowd from his 
own State, furnish it with grandstand seats and 
make it welcome in every way. According to my 
recollection the Kentucky women were the only fe- 
males present, so very unfashionable it was for 
ladies to go to races in the extreme South. There 
may have been some demi-mondaines scattered here 
and there, in inconspicuous places. 

The race, the only one I had ever witnessed, was 
tremendously exciting, and as the gallant horses 
swept round the last lap, Lexington, ever so little, 
in the lead, the uproar became quite deafening. One 
of the Johnson women, beautiful and enthusiastic, 
sprang upon the bench and said to her equally ex- 
cited escort, "Hold me while I holler." He threw 
his strong arms about her and steadied her feet. 
"Now, holler" — and never did I hear the full com- 
pass of the female voice before, nor since. Such 
excitement, as we all know, is contagious, and it con- 
tinued for days after the great achievement that 
put dear old Lexington in the front rank, and filled 
the pocketbooks of his owners, abettors and ad- 
mirers. 

248 



WHEN LEXINGTON WON THE RACE 

Of course, this race was practically an all-day ven- 
ture, and, equally of course, people got hungry; and 
throats, most particularly Kentucky throats, awfully 
dry. Mr. Tenbroeck provided liberally for such a 
contingency, so a luncheon was served al fresco, with 
lots of champagne, which latter did not dampen the 
ardor of those terribly dry throats. We assembled 
in little groups around the viands, and there were 
jokes and puns and stories that varied the monotony 
of horse talk, that had dominated every other topic 
for days. In all the circles there was fun and frolic. 
Kentuckians can be very hilarious. The unique ve- 
hicle that carried our party back to the hotel rocked 
and tumbled tipsily along. The sprightly crowd 
that departed In a somewhat steady condition in the 
forenoon were sleepily tired when they gained their 
sky parlors later in the day. A brief rest must have 
revived them, for as we passed through the hall to 
a rather late breakfast the following morning, trays 
of empty glasses and bottles, flanked by freshly 
blacked boots and shoes, afforded evidence that more 
refreshments had been absorbed later, and the par- 
ties had returned to the Land of Nod. 



XXXI 

LOUISIANA STATE FAIR FIFTY YEARS AGO 

IT was in 1859 or i860 — I cannot fix the exact 
dates of many events immediately prior to the 
war, for the rush of an overwhelming waste 
carried dates, as everything else, away, but it was 
before the war that several enterprising and ad- 
vanced citizens of Louisiana planned and organized 
and "resolved" themselves into a committee to stim- 
ulate the indolent agricultural population to a more 
active life, by inaugurating a series of State agricul- 
tural and mechanical exhibitions, patterned as near 
as might be on the annual State and county fairs of 
Kentucky, Missouri and other enterprising agricul- 
tural States. Mr. John A. Dougherty, Major Sam 
Hart, George W. Ward, John Perkins, my husband, 
Mr. James McHatton and his brother Charles, 
Wm. A. Pike and others whose names escape 
me now, secured from the United States gov- 
ernment, through the joint efforts of Hon. John 
Slidell and J. P. Benjamin, United States Senators 

250 



LOUISIANA STATE FAIR FIFTY YEARS AGO 

from Louisiana, and Thomas Green Davidson, Rep- 
resentative of the Sixth District, temporary use of 
the then practically abandoned Barracks in Baton 
Rouge, as being the most available site in the State 
for the purpose of an experimental fair. Only a 
corporal's guard had been stationed there, to furl 
and unfurl the flag and to fire the evening gun, as 
evidence that the grounds were United States prop- 
erty. In those precincts and under those auspices, 
were held the first and the last and only "Louisiana 
State Agricultural and Mechanical Fair." 

There came from New Orleans many exhibitors of 
farming implements and products; from plantations, 
whose owners happened to be "wide awake," cattle, 
horses, sugar, molasses, and all such; from the small 
farmer who occasionally read the papers, and there- 
by kept in touch with the march of events, pigs and 
poultry; and from the homes of enterprising women, 
all sorts of fancy work and domestic articles. There 
were quite handsome prizes of silver, worth compet- 
ing for, offered by the managers. The parade ground 
was ample to "show off" harness horses. An area 
was fenced off for cattle, and side-show places as- 
signed for pigs and poultry. The Barrack buildings, 
two stories in height, surrounding the enclosure, of- 
fered abundant room for the exhibit of farming 
utensils, harness, etc. Rooms were appropriated for 

251 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

the luncheons and lounging places of friends and 
guests. 

The first two days were rather disappointing, so 
few people understood just what was being at- 
tempted, but the number of the exhibitors increased 
day by day, so that, before the final day, the man- 
agers had reason to be enthusiastic at the success 
and consequent promise for future State fairs. 

Old Mr. Kleinpeter, of the high lands, entered 
a sow with a litter of nine pigs, whereupon Gran- 
ville Pierce "went one better" with a sow and four- 
teen pigs. To be sure, the pigs varied in size, and 
people made merry over the pig exhibit! From the 
"Cottage" plantation (Cottage, by the way, was a 
tremendous big house) came a hogshead of prize 
open kettle brown sugar. Immediately "Whitehall" 
plantation saw it could beat that — and next day a 
hogshead of the "Whitehall" brand was entered. It 
was thus the project expanded to creditable dimen- 
sions. An enterprising lady who had won a silver 
spoon prize at a similar fair in the West, entered 
a dressy bonnet, made entirely of fine corn shucks; 
bows, flowers, feathers and all! Whereupon, a 
smart miss from Grosse Tete sent three home-made 
sun bonnets. The domestic exhibit thus resolved it- 
self Into a competitive show. A Jew in town had met 
with indifferent success in a sewing machine venture 

252 



LOUISIANA STATE FAIR FIFTY YEARS AGO 

(sewing machines were in their immaturity then, and 
not coveted by women who had domestics to order) , 
till the happy thought of a chance at the fair. Soon 
there was a sewing machine on exhibition — a "Fin- 
kle and Lyon" — I don't forget the make, now 
happily out of existence, for in an evil moment, 
moved by the Jew's persuasive eloquence, I in- 
vested in a "Finkle and Lyon" which I quickly 
found could only be made to "run" by copious 
drenchings of olive oil, aided by the warm rays of 
the sun ! 

All the citizens of Baton Rouge entertained 
guests for the fair week, the Harney House and 
other small hostelries being totally inadequate. Sev- 
eral New Orleans merchants showed great interest 
in the venture. Cuthbert Slocomb entered a fine 
exhibit of plows, hoes and other farming tools, that 
were in his line of trade. So, also, did the firm of 
Slark, Day and Stauffer; Henderson & Gaines sent 
of their stock, as also did many others whose busi- 
ness brought them in contact with the agricultural 
world. The cattle display was quite surprisingly 
good, as were also the harness horses. The Inex- 
perienced judges of such stock were often criticised 
for their decisions, but the people were amiable and 
in a mood to enjoy everything. 

Such an outpouring from the "Cajin" settlements 
253 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

on the river, and on Bayou Tete and Bayou For- 
doche, and such other communities of small preten- 
sions, and still smaller achievements, never, I am 
sure, had invaded Baton Rouge before. It was as 
"good as a play" to watch their interest and en- 
thusiasm, to see the greetings of families and friends, 
who lived beyond the reach of a ramshackle voiture 
and a worn-out horse. I do not recall the season of 
the year that immortal fair occurred, but it must have 
been in late winter, for I remember a small dish of 
radishes on my lunch table, such a rarity that Col. 
Sparks ate every one. How one does recall, after 
a lapse of years, such insignificant things! Some of 
the bon v'lvants, like Dr. French, Mr. Bonnecage, 
and Dr. Harney, regretted that the enterprise was 
not postponed till artichokes and river shrimp were 
in season. 

It seems almost immediately after that I accom- 
panied my delegate husband to that ill-starred Demo- 
cratic convention in Charleston, and almost the next 
day that the Hon. J. P. Benjamin made his soul- 
stirring speech in Congress, that magnificent burst 
of impassioned oratory, whose prediction was never 
verified; almost the next day that Hon. John Slidell 
returned to Louisiana a sad, despondent man, and 
old Tom Green Davidson hobbled back to Baton 
Rouge on his crutches, so full of bitterness and hate 

254 



LOUISIANA STATE FAIR FIFTY YEARS AGO 

— almost the next day that the flag that waved so 
gloriously over the parade ground where the hopes 
and aspirations of those enterprising citizens took 

flight, was hauled down. 

And after that — the Deluge! 



XXXII 

THE LAST CHRISTMAS 

CHRISTMAS before the war. There never 
will be another in any land, with any peo- 
ples, like the Christmas of 1859 — ^^ the 
old plantation. Days beforehand preparations 
were in progress for the wedding at the quar- 
ters, and the ball at the "big house." Children 
coming home for the holidays were both amused 
and delighted to learn that Nancy Brackenridge 
was to be the quarter bride. "Nancy a bride ! Oh, 
la!" they exclaimed. "Why Nancy must be forty 
years old." And she was going to marry Aleck, 
who, if he would wait a year or two, might marry 
Nancy's daughter. While the young schoolgirls 
were busy "letting out" the white satin ball dress 
that had descended from the parlor dance to the 
quarter bride, and were picking out and freshening 
up the wreath and corsage bouquet of lilies of the 
valley that had been the wedding flowers of the mis- 
tress of the big house, and while the boys were ran- 
sacking the distant woods for holly branches and 

256 



THE LAST CHRISTMAS 

magnolia boughs, enough for the ballroom as well 
as the wedding supper table, the family were busy 
with the multitudinous preparations for the annual 
dance, for which Arlington, with its ample parlors 
and halls, and its proverbial hospitality, was noted 
far and wide. 

The children made molasses gingerbread and 
sweet potato pies, and one big bride's cake, with 
a real ring in it. They spread the table In the 
big quarters nursery, and the boys decorated it 
with greenery and a lot of cut paper fly catchers, 
laid on the roast mutton and pig, and hot biscuits 
from the big house kitchen, and the pies and cakes 
of the girls' own make. The girls proceeded to 
dress Nancy Brackenridge, pulling together that re- 
fractory satin waist which, though It had been "let 
out" to Its fullest extent, still showed a sad gap, to 
be concealed by a dextrous arrangement of some dis- 
carded hair ribbons. Nancy was black as a crow 
and had rather a startling look In that dazzling 
white satin dress and the pure white flowers pinned 
to her kinks. At length the girls gave a finishing 
pat to the toilet, and their brothers pronounced her 
"bully," and called Marthy Ann to see how fine her 
mammy was. 

As was the custom, the whole household went to 
the quarters to witness the wedding. Lewis, the 

257 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

plantation preacher, in a cast-off swallow-tail coat of 
Marse Jim's that was uncomfortably tight, espe- 
cially about the waist line, performed the ceremony. 
Then my husband advanced and made some re- 
marks, to the effect that this marriage was a 
solemn tie, and there must be no shirking of its du- 
ties; they must behave and be faithful to each other; 
he would have no foolishness. These remarks, 
though by no means elegant, fitted the occasion to 
a fraction. There were no high flights of eloquence 
which the darky mind could not reach, it was plain, 
unvarnished admonition. 

The following morning, Christmas Day, the field 
negroes were summoned to the back porch of the 
big house, where Marse Jim, after a few prelimi- 
nary remarks, distributed the presents — a head 
handkerchief, a pocketknife, a pipe, a dress for the 
baby, shoes for the growing boy (his first pair, 
maybe), etc., etc., down the list. Each gift was re- 
ceived with a "Thankee, sir," and, perhaps, also 
a remark anent its usefulness. Then after Char- 
lotte brought forth the jug of whisky and the tin 
cups, and everyone had a comforting dram, they 
filed off to the quarters, with a week of holiday 
before them and a trip to town to do their little 
buying. 

The very last Christmas on the old plantation 
258 




L 



James Alexander AIcHatton 



THE LAST CHRISTMAS 

we had a tree. None of us had ever seen a Christ- 
mas tree; there were no cedars or pines, so we 
finally settled upon a tall althea bush, hung presents 
on it, for all the house servants, as well as for the 
family and a few guests. The tree had to be lighted 
up, so it was postponed till evening. The idea of 
the house servants having such a celebration quite 
upset the little negroes. I heard one remark, "All 
us house niggers is going to be hung on a tree." 
Before the dawn of another Christmas the negroes 
had become discontented, demoralized and scattered, 
freer than the whites, for the blacks recognized no 
responsibilities whatever. The family had aban- 
doned the old plantation home. We could not stand 
the changed condition of things any longer, and the 
Federals had entered into possession and completed 
the ruin. Very likely some reminiscent darky told 
new-found friends, "All de house niggers was hung 
on a tree last Christmas." I have heard from 
Northern lips even more astonishing stories of mal- 
treated slaves than a wholesale hanging. 

Frequently before the holidays some of the ne- 
groes were questioned as to what they would like 
to have, and the planter would make notes and have 
the order filled in the city. That, I think, was the 
custom at Whitehall plantation. I was visiting there 
on one occasion when a woman told Judge Chinn 

259 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

she wanted a mourning veil. "A mourning veil!" 
he replied. "I thought you were going to marry 
Tom this Christmas?" "I Is, marster, but you know 
Jim died last grinding, and I ain't never mourned 
none for Jim. I want to mourn some 'fore I mar- 
ries ag'in." I did not remain to see, but I do not 
doubt she got the mourning veil and had the melan- 
choly satisfaction of wearing it around the quarter 
lot a few days before she married Tom. 

After the departure of our happy negroes, whose 
voices and laughter could be heard long after the 
yard gate was closed and they had vanished out of 
sight, we rushed around like wild to complete prepa- 
rations for the coming ball guests. They began to 
arrive in the afternoon from down the coast and 
from the opposite side of the river. Miles and miles 
some of them drove in carriages, with champagne 
baskets, capital forerunners of the modern suit case, 
tied on behind, and, like as not, a dusky maid 
perched on top of it; poor thing, the carriage being 
full, she had to travel in that precarious way, hold- 
ing on for dear life. Those old-time turtle-back ve- 
hicles had outside a small single seat for the coach- 
man only. Parties came also in skiffs, with their 
champagne baskets and maids. Long before time 
for the guests from town to appear mammas and 
maids were busy in the bedrooms, dressing their 

260 



THE LAST CHRISTMAS 

young ladies for the occasion. Meanwhile the plan- 
tation musicians were assembling, two violins, a 
flute, a triangle, and a tambourine. A platform 
had been erected at one end of the rooms, with 
kitchen chairs and cuspidors, for their accommoda- 
tion. Our own negroes furnished the dance music, 
but we borrowed Col. Hicky's Washington for the 
tambourine. He was more expert than any "end 
man" you ever saw. He kicked it and butted it 
and struck it with elbow and heel, and rattled it 
in perfect unison with the other instruments, mak- 
ing more noise, and being himself a more inspiring 
sight, than all the rest of the band put together. 
Col. Hicky always said it was the only thing 
Washington was fit for, and he kept the worthless 
negro simply because he was the image (in bronze) 
of Gen. Lafayette. Col. Hicky was an octogena- 
rian, and had seen Gen. Lafayette, so he could not 
have been mistaken. When Washington flagged, a 
few drops of whisky was all he needed to refresh his 
energies. 

The whirl of the dance waxed as the night 
waned. The tired paterfamiliases sat around the 
rooms, too true to their mission to retire for a 
little snooze. They were restored to consciousness 
at intervals by liberal cups of strong coffee. Black 
William, our first violin, called out the figures, 
18 261 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

"Ladles to the right!" "Set to your partners!" — 
and the young people whirled and swung around 
In the giddy reel as though they would never have 
such another opportunity to dance — as, Indeed, many 
of them never did. From the porch and lawn win- 
dows black faces gazed at the inspiring scene. They 
never saw the like again, either. 

Laughing, wide-awake girls and tired fathers and 
mothers started homeward at the first blush of 
dawn, when they could plainly see their way over 
the roads. I started too early from a party the 
year before, and the buggy I was in ran over a dust- 
colored cow lying asleep in the road. The nodding 
maid again perilously perched on top the cham- 
pagne basket, and skiffs with similar freight plied 
across the broad river as soon as there was suffi- 
cient light to enable them to dodge a passing steam- 
boat. 

The last ball was a noble success. We danced on 
and on, never thinking this was to be our last dance 
In the big house. Clouds were hovering all about 
us the following Christmas. No one had the heart 
to dance then. The negroes had already become 
restless and discontented. After that the Deluge! 
The big house long ago slid into the voracious Mis- 
sissippi. The quarters where the wedding feast was 
spread are fallen into ruins, the negroes scattered 

262 



THE LAST CHRISTMAS 

or dead. The children, so happy and so busy then, 
are now old people — the only ones left to look on 
this imperfectly drawn picture with any personal 
interest. We lived, indeed, a life never to be lived 
again. 



XXXIII 

A WEDDING IN WAR TIME 

MARSE GREEN says cum right away; he's 
gwine to marry Miss Fanny to de Cap- 
tain." 

"When?" 

"Soon's I kin git de preacher. I can't wait for 
you; I ain't got no preacher yit." 

That was a summons I had one hot day in early 
summer, in war times. Yankees in New Orleans; 
gunboats almost hourly reported "jist 'round de 
p'int"; and we people distractedly hanging on the 
ragged edge of alarm and anxiety, did not pause 
to think how impossible it was for us to know what 
was happening "jist 'round de p'int," for all infor- 
mation about things beyond our physical eyesight 
was questionable. In the rush of uncertain and 
unlooked-for events, we could not plan any future, 
even one day ahead, so overwhelmed were we in 
mind and estate (not to mention body) with the 
strenuousness of the pitiful present. 

I hastily changed my dress and was ready when 
my carriage was brought to the door. "Marse 

264 



A WEDDING IN WAR TIME 

Green" (I will not give the full name; everybody in 
his old district knows who I mean), was a lawyer, 
a politician, a man of family, while not a family 
man, and his little cottage home In town was pre- 
sided over, the best they knew how, by his three 
daughters, the eldest of whom was scarcely out of 
her teens. The disturbed state of the country had 
compelled me to stay quietly as I could at my plan- 
tation home, and In the absorbing and frequent ru- 
mor of Yankees coming, no real town news and gos- 
sip sifted in. Thus I had not heard that Miss 
Fanny's fiance, a wounded soldier, was at Marse 
Green's. 

I was driven at a rapid pace up the road and 
through the restless, crowded street throngs to the 
home of these motherless girls, whose New Eng- 
land governess had returned North. I had long 
been their mother's dearest friend, and a refuge for 
her daughters in all their troubles and perplexities. 
We were completely cut off from any reliable infor- 
mation of the doings of the world, almost at our 
doors. Everybody knew New Orleans had fallen 
and Butler was treading the prostrate people with 
hoofs of iron, and also it was only a matter of time 
when his rule would reach our town only 130 miles 
off. As a matter of course, under such circumstances, 
we were alive to any startling rumor. 

265 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Marse Green, who did things by fits and 
starts, and did them very thoroughly, too, when 
he started, had announced to his daughters on the 
morning of my visit that they must be ready by 
early dawn the following day to move themselves 
and everything else they might need to his plan- 
tation on the Amite. Then the man of family 
shook the dust of further assistance from his 
feet and proceeded to his office for the ciay's en- 
lightenments. Of course, all business of a legal 
nature was suspended. The few able-bodied men 
lingering outside the rank of fighters, who were face- 
tiously called "Druthers," because they'd druther 
not fight, or in other words, would druther stay at 
home, had dropped in Marse Green's office to while 
pleasantly away their idle time. The old gentleman 
hobbled on his crutches to his favorite chair and was 
telling his lounging visitors that gunboats being "jist 
'round de p'int," he was sending his family out of 
harm's way, when some one casually remarked, 
"What you going to do with the Captain? He 
can't stay here, a paroled soldier, and he can't go 
with those young girls that way." "By gracious!" 
Marse Green had not thought of that. The Cap- 
tain must marry Fanny right away, or run the risk 
of being captured, for he had no place to go. In 
pursuance of that sudden plan, an emissary was 

266 



A WEDDING IN WAR TIME 

dispatched to summon me, and to get the Meth- 
odist preacher. Messengers were also sent with 
flying feet among the few near neighbors, asking 
their presence that afternoon, while Marse Green 
himself rushed back home to announce the decision 
to his family. 

I arrived in a scene of confusion beyond words to 
express. Already some kindly neighbors were there 
helping the distracted girls to pack. Trunks, boxes, 
bags, barrels, baskets, were in every room with piles 
and piles of household and personal articles to be 
stowed. Everybody was busy and everybody stum- 
bling and tearing about in every other body's way. 
Marse Green had already descended upon them with 
his ultimatum, and worse became the confusion with 
this new and unexpected element injected into it. 
Dear Fanny must be married in white, so every one 
declared. Then ensued a ransacking of trunks and 
drawers for a pretty white lawn she had — some- 
where ! At length it was brought to light in a very 
crumpled condition, not having been worn since the 
winter (the last Buchanan winter) Fanny spent in 
Washington with her father. There was no time or 
opportunity or place, apparently, to press the 
wrinkles out and make the really handsome gown 
presentable. Then there arose a clamor and fran- 
tic search for white stockings. Nobody had the 

267 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

temerity to mention white kid gloves. They were of 
the past, as completely as a thousand other neces- 
sities we had learned to do without. The black 
dress was laid aside. Fanny looked very lovely in 
her white gown, the most calm and composed of any 
of us. 

The dazed, bewildered and half-sick Captain me- 
andered around in his dingy Confederate gray, the 
only suit he had. His skull had been fractured in 
battle (I think at Shiloh), the hair had been shaved 
off one side of his head and a silver plate covered 
and protected the wound. Time was passing swifter 
than the motions of the little party, fast as they were. 
All the packing and loading of wagons had to be 
completed for the early morning start. The rest 
of us could stay in our homes and run our chances — 
which we did, woe is me ! — but Marse Green's girls 
must be off, in accordance with his dictum, and, of 
course, a Confederate officer had to get out of the 
enemy's reach. 

Meanwhile the other invited neighbors were ar- 
riving, and also an Episcopal minister. Mr. Cren- 
shaw, the Methodist preacher, could not be found. 
He had spent hours haranguing the few peace- 
loving Jews, superannuated cripples and handful of 
"Druthers" remaining in town, telling those inca- 
pables or insufficlents they were not patriotic to 

268 



A WEDDING IN WAR TIME 

stand aside and let the enemy's gunboats land at 
our wharf, but it appears when the latter really were 
"just behind de p'int," the voluble gentleman's dis- 
cretion got the better of his valor, and he had in- 
gloriously fled. 

One kindly neighbor, a late arrival, whispered to 
another, who had been there all day helping, "Any 
refreshments?" Not a soul had thought of refresh- 
ments; we isolated housekeepers had not even heard 
the name for so long that it had not occurred to us 
to talk of furnishing what we could not procure. 
The late comer rushed home and quickly returned 
with the half of a cornmeal pound-cake and a pitcher 
of brown sugar lemonade. Then the minister re- 
quired some one to give the bride away. That was 
not in Marse Green's Methodist service, and be- 
sides Marse Green was getting mortally tired and 
fractious, so, without my knowing it, Mr. McHatton 
volunteered to perform that function. We guests 
who had been behind the scenes, and were getting 
to be mortally tired and fractious, too, assembled in 
the hastily-cleared parlor to witness the ceremony. 

I was struck with amazement to see my husband, 
who had been the busiest man there all day, march 
into the room with dear, pretty Fanny on his arm! 
I never did know where the necessary ring came 
from, but somebody produced a plain gold ring, 

269 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

which, no doubt, was afterwards returned with ap- 
propriate thanks. The Captain was a strikingly 
handsome man, even with a bandaged head and 
those ill-fitting clothes, not even store-made, and we 
all agreed Fanny looked very placid and happy. 
Their healths were drunk in tepid lemonade (did 
you ever drink brown sugar lemonade? If your 
grandmother is a Southern woman I'll be bound 
she has). There was a hurried "God bless you!" 
and a kiss, and I had to rush home to two wounded 
brothers needing my care. 

Some near neighbors stayed to assist in the fur- 
ther preparations for an early flight. I afterwards 
heard the entire family, groom and all, were at 
work all night, and at early dawn Marse Green was 
able to start the loaded wagons to the piny, sandy 
country. The bride and groom and two young 
sisters piled into the ramshackle old family carriage, 
and were driven off, a ten hours' trip to Amite. I 
trust they made it before night, but it was many 
years thereafter before I knew anything further of 
them. 

I asked my husband, afterwards, when we talked 
the wedding over, who paid the minister? We had 
not seen yet a Confederate soldier with as much 
money as a wedding fee in his pocket. "I don't 
think the Captain had a dollar," he replied, "so I 

270 



A WEDDING IN WAR TIME 

whispered him to be easy; we would attend to the 
minister." No hat was passed around, but someone 
produced a fifty-dollar Confederate bill — unless it 
was parted with very promptly it was not worth 
fifty cents to the preacher. 

The gunboats the frantic negroes had so long 
heralded, got "round de p'int" at last, and a battle 
ensued in the very streets of our town. Marse 
Green's house happened to be in the thick of it, 
and consequently was so riddled that it was put 
permanently out of commission. The family never 
returned to it, even to view the ruins. 

At the time of the exposition I accidentally met 
the Captain and his wife on a street car in New Or- 
leans, At Napoleon avenue the car stopped and the 
passengers were leaving. I asked in a general way, 
knowing no one, "Do we change cars here?" A 
voice, whose owner was out of sight, promptly re- 
plied, "Yes, madam, you wait for me." I was thus 
the last passenger to descend, and to my unspeak- 
able amazement I was received by the Captain and 
Fanny! She said, though she did not see me, she 
had recognized my voice, and she reminded me that 
it was almost twenty-one years since we parted. It 
was sweet to know that the marriage in haste had not 
the proverbial sequel of repentance at leisure. They 
were a happy couple. 

271 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

The whole wedding affair was a painful and piti- 
ful episode, and for years I had thought of it with 
a tinge of sadness; but a few years ago, on a later 
visit to New Orleans, I had the happiness to meet 
a dear old friend who was one of the busiest helpers 
on the occasion, and we merrily laughed over the re- 
called incidents that at the time were so pathetic. 
The handsome Captain may be living; I have since 
lost track of him, but every other soul that was at 
that wedding has gone where there's no marrying 
or giving in marriage — I, only, am left to chronicle 
this wedding in war-time. 



XXXIV 

SUBSTITUTES 

MRS. WALKER sent me a pan of flour! 
It was the first time In months and al- 
most the last time in years that I saw 
flour. These, you must know, were war times, and 
flour was not the only necessary we lacked. Dear 
Dr. Stone had a blufi^, hearty way of arriving at 
things. When the Federals were in New Orleans 
he was often called for a surgical consultation, or 
to administer to an ofiicer, with headache or back- 
ache, for they were mortally afraid of yellow fever, 
and it was just the season for it; and their regimen- 
tal surgeons were not familiar with the scourge. Dr. 
Stone frequently "made a bargain" before he would 
act, and so I do not doubt in that way he obtained 
permission to ship a barrel of flour — for which all 
of us were famishing — to Mrs. Stone's sister on the 
coast. Mrs. Walker most generously shared it with 
her neighbors. 

Indians had lived on cornmeal and prospered 
therewith. Negroes had lived on cornmeal and 

273 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

prospered also. We were living on cornmeal and 
not prospering, for we had been brought up on 
(metaphorically speaking) nectar and ambrosia. 
Our cakes even, everybody had to have cakes! were 
made of cornmeal and molasses. , . . But I 
want to tell more about our Dr. Stone. When one 
Northern officer sent for him to consult about am- 
putating a leg the doctor told him, in his blunt, posi- 
tive way, he would not even examine the wounded 
member until he had in his pocket a permit for 
Mrs. Stone and the ladies associated with her to 
visit the Parish Prison and minister to the Confed- 
erates confined there. It was the only time any of 
us ever heard of a body asking the privilege of 
entering that dirty old calaboose down by Congo 
Square. 

Many such stories were wafted to us about Dr. 
Stone. Some may not have been authentic, but we 
loved to hear and to repeat them. However, after 
the war, I did hear him tell of a Union officer offer- 
ing him the present of a fine horse in recognition of 
some professional obligation. "I needed that 
horse," he said, "for I had none, and so I was go- 
ing my rounds a-foot, but it was branded U. S. and 
I returned it." Years after I met that Federal offi- 
cer in St. Paul, and, speaking of the doctor, whom he 
admired greatly, he told of the horse he had ten- 

274 



SUBSTITUTES 

dered him, which was promptly returned, accom- 
panied with a most amusing note, ending with "So 
US don't want that horse." 

Every blessed one of us was a coffee drinker, 
and even before the secession of Louisiana we were 
weighing and measuring what coffee we had on hand, 
not knowing where we could replenish our dimin- 
ishing stock. Gov. Manning, of South Carolina, 
and his wife were our guests at this crisis, and Mrs. 
Manning showed me how to prepare a substitute 
for coffee. Gracious me! that was the first, but we 
had substitutes for almost every article, both to eat 
and to wear, before we were whipped like naughty 
children and dragged back into the Union, and made 
to take our nauseous medicine, labeled "Reconstruc- 
tion." And now we are all cured! and will never be 
naughty again. 

That first substitute, which was followed by a 
score of others, was sweet potatoes, cut, dried, 
toasted, ground and boiled. The concoction did not 
taste so very bad, but it had no aroma, and, of 
course, no exhilarating quality; it was simply a 
sweety, hot drink. We had lots of Confederate 
money, but it quickly lost any purchasing power it 
ever had. There was nothing for sale, and we 
could not have bought anything even if shops had 
been stocked with goods and supplies. A pin! Why 

275 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to this day I always stoop to pick up a pin, I learned 
so to value that insignificant necessary in the days 
we could not buy a pin. A hairpin! Many women 
in country towns used thorns to secure their "water- 
falls." We wore waterfalls; chignons they were 
called later. I saw many of them made of silk 
strings, plaited or twisted. Women had to be in 
the fashion, as Dr. Talmage once said, "though the 
heavens fell." If we had had anything to sew we 
would have missed the usual needle supply. 

I was visiting one day when one large and one 
small needle were all there were in the house; if 
they had been made entirely of gold, instead of 
"gold-eyed" only, they could not have been more 
cherished. I can hear the wailing voice now, in- 
quiring, "Where is the needle?" 

You may smile now at the idea of a substitute 
for a toothbrush, but, my dear, that oft-quoted 
mother of invention taught us an althea switch made 
a fairly good toothbrush; of course, it was both 
scratchy and stiff, but we never found a better sub- 
stitute for the necessary article. As for tea, we 
Southerners have never been addicted to the tea 
habit; however, we soon became disgusted with the 
various coffee substitutes. We tried to vary our bev- 
erages with draughts of catnip tea, that the darkies 
always give their babies for colic; and orange leaf 

276 



SUBSTITUTES 

tea, that old ladies administered to induce perspira- 
tion in cases of chills; and sassafras tea we had 
drunk years gone by in the spring season to thin the 
blood. We did not fancy posing as babies or ague 
cases — the taste of each variety was highly sug- 
gestive. I wonder if any lady of to-day ever saw 
a saucer of home-made soft soap on her washstand? 
After using it one had to grease (no use saying oil, 
for it was generally mutton tallow) the hands to 
prevent the skin cracking. I never used that soap, 
but traveling in out-of-the-way roads I saw it on 
many a stand. Clothes, too, wore out, as is their 
nature, and the kind we were used to wearing 
were not of the lasting variety like osnaburgs and 
linseys. 

Quite early in the war Cuthbert Slocomb and 
De Choiseul stopped over a night with us on their 
way to the front. With them was another young 
man whose name escapes me now, who was suffer- 
ing from chills, so he remained a few days as our 
guest. We dosed him with orange-leaf tea, which 
was about the best we could do, having no quinine 
on hand. In his kit he had a lot of chamois skins, 
which he laid out before me with the modest re- 
quest I make a pair of pantaloons out of them. We 
talked the project over and decided overalls were 
the only thing in that line that could be made of 
19 277 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

chamois skins, that, of course, had to be pieced 
lengthways, crossways and sideways. The result 
was satisfactory, and the young man proudly car- 
ried off his overalls. I hoped, but did not expect, 
that he would escape a rain or two on his expedi- 
tion clad in chamois skins ! Howev^er, I was 
amply repaid for my ingenuity and skill, for I 
had scraps enough of the skins left me to supply to- 
bacco pouches and gloves to lots of soldier friends 
thereafter. 

At one time, in dire need, I paid one dollar a 
yard for thin coarse muslin, white with black dots, 
which looked distressingly bad after a wetting or 
two, but my crowning extravagance was paying 
thirty dollars a yard for common blue denim; that 
was in Houston. Thus went the last of my Con- 
federate money. After that for a while we did 
without things. 

Mr. James Phelps of New Orleans — scores of us 
must remember genial Jim Phelps — made a call on 
me in Texas, introducing himself with the whimsical 
remark that I must look at him from shoulder up 
and not down, for he had on a brand new paper 
collar, and had borrowed the use of a razor, and 
was now out making ceremonious calls! Oh, dear 
me! we lived through all of these privations, and 
the few remaining survivors are not afflicted with 

278 



SUBSTITUTES 

nervous prostration, or any of the fashionable ills 
of the day. Their nerves were strengthened, their 
spirits brightened. They bravely bore the fires of 
trouble and privation that make them placidly con- 
tent with the comforts and solaces of their declining 
years. 



XXXV 

AN UNRECORDED BIT OF NEW ORLEANS HISTORY 

SINCE there are still living descendants of the 
persons concerned in this incident, I have 
omitted names. The story is entirely true 
and well known to many old residents of New 
Orleans. 

More than sixty-five years ago, a man I shall 
not name, was tried and convicted of fraud 
against the State Land office. He was in the prime 
of life, educated, a West Point graduate, of good 
parentage, splendid physique, gracious though a 
trifle pompous and self-asserting in manner and 
of presumed wealth. Of course, his case, when 
it came to trial, was bravely contested inch by 
inch. Rich relatives, influential friends, and the best 
legal talent were enlisted, but it was too plain a case 
of fraud. So, after tedious trial, conviction and sen- 
tence to the Penitentiary at Baton Rouge resulted. 
There were the usual delays, a stay of sentence, a 
wrangle as to final commitment, a question of length 
of sentence. His sureties were caught in the net, 

280 



AN UNRECORDED BIT OF HISTORY 

and tremendous efforts they made to dodge liability 
for the amount of the bond. Two of the sureties 
did escape, but the third made good. In steamboat 
parlance, he "went to the clerk's office and settled." 
Meanwhile the convicted man — he was called 
"Colonel," not by courtesy only, for, unlike most 
Southern Colonels of that date, he had had mili- 
tary training and might have been even more if 
he had waited till Generals were in dire demand 
in Dixie — the Colonel was behind bars in the Parish 
Prison. The horrid old calaboose down by Congo 




The Calaboose. 

Square, where more than one Confederate lan- 
guished two decades later, when the prison was 
twenty years older and forty years dirtier. The Col- 
onel's devoted wife, who had worn out the energies 

281 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

of a dozen wives, and was still alert and active in 
behalf of her unfortunate mate, never relaxed her 
vigilance. When the coils of the law wrapped 
tighter and tighter around the doomed man, she 
rose to every emergency. No personal appeals, 
nothing her fertile mind had suggested, had availed 
to stay the process of the law. Now that worse had 
come to the worst, and the Colonel was under lock 
and key, awaiting the final decision as to length of 
sentence. Madam and the Colonel's oldest daughter 
(her step-daughter, by the way) went daily to the 
calaboose to visit the prisoner. Their visits were 
made always In the afternoon. The two cloaked 
and heavily veiled ladies remained till the closing 
of the gates. 

It was In the fall of the year, and election times, 
when politics were rife. Madam was not only bright 
and Intelligent, but endowed with remarkable tact, 
and brim full of schemes and resources. At every 
visit she stopped at the gate and had converse with 
the warden or turnkey, or whoever was on duty, and 
related to him the latest news and political gossip 
and bantered him on his political bias, no matter 
what that bias was. This course she pursued daily and 
vigorously. The daughter, still in her teens, was 
a mere figurehead, always heavily veiled and en- 
veloped In a voluminous long coat. With the sllght- 

282 



AN UNRECORDED BIT OF HISTORY 

est nod of recognition to "the powers that be," she 
proceeded rapidly to her father's cell, leaving her 
mother, so bursting with talk and information that 
she could neither enter nor depart without first un- 
burdening herself of the latest political news. 

One evening, when matters at court were nearing 
the crisis, the two ladies rushed into prison, almost 
breathless, they had hurried so! They had had all 
sorts of detentions. They realized they were late, 
and would only have a minute, but they could not 
let the day pass without the customary visit to the 
Colonel, etc., etc. While madam was endeav- 
oring to explain to the warden the cause of the 
delay, and tell also some anecdote anent the elec- 
tion which was too good to keep, the quiet young 
girl proceeded at once to the cell of her father. The 
turnkey came in sight, significantly rattling his keys, 
which roused madam to the consciousness that she 
had not been in to kiss the Colonel good-night, after 
all. She had been so interested in Mr. Warden, 
he was so entertaining, and had such queer 
views and opinions of the candidates, etc., etc. So, 
to the Colonel she rushed, returning immediately to 
the gate, where her friend was impatiently waiting 
to lock up, signal to do so having been given. The 
dim lamps about Congo Square had been lighted 
and a darkening November day was fast closing 

283 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

around them. "Lavinia, come, the jailor is waiting 
to lock up." "Yes, ma," was the reply from the 
cell. A moment later: "Lavinia, it is getting too 
dark for us to be out; come at once." "Yes, ma, I'm 
coming right now." "That girl can't bear to leave 
her father." As the madam said this, out rushed 
Lavinia. Her mother caught her arm and both par- 
ties darted through the closing gate, with a wave 
from madam's hand and a "Good-bye, we will be 
early to-morrow and never keep you waiting again." 

The lock-up took his rounds at the usual time to 
close the cells for the night. The Colonel seemed 
to be quietly sleeping in his narrow cot, trousers 
and stockings carelessly thrown upon the chair. The 
door was securely fastened by the officer. 

Next morning, when it was opened, a gruff voice 
called to the sleeper, who seemed to be stupidly 
half awake. Miss Lavinia rose from the bed, show- 
ing her face to the attendant for the first time In all 
these weeks. The Colonel, disguised in his daugh- 
ter's cloak and veil, had flown ! 

There were no telegraphs, or wireless, nothing. In 
fact, but nimble legs and more nimble horses to fa- 
cilitate the frantic search. The bird had flown 
afar. 

Long before the cage door was opened the pris- 
oner was beyond the reach of the long arm of the 

284 



AN UNRECORDED BIT OF HISTORY 

law. Madam had for weeks been skillfully planning 
escape, how skillfully, the result proved. She had 
engaged the services of the captain of a fruit 
schooner to take a lady passenger on his next trip 
to Havana. To Insure results, she had privately 
conveyed provisions and necessary articles for the 
passenger's comfort to the vessel, bribed the captain 
to secrecy, and It was planned he would give her 
timely notice when the tides and winds were favor- 
able to raise sail, and put rapidly and silently to 
sea from Lake Pontchartraln. 

He fulfilled his promises so to do. 

When the two (supposed) women rushed Into the 
hack awaiting them round the corner from the jail, 
the driver whipped up his horses and trotted rather 
faster than usual down the old shell road he had 
conveyed these ladles more times than he could re- 
member, right from that old corner to the schooner 
landing. 

Years after these events had ceased to be talked 
of, or even remembered, and the ladles who bore 
the colonel's name had vanished from Louisiana, 
from the deck of an incoming steamer in the harbor 
of Havana my husband was frantically hailed by 
a stout old gentleman standing In a lighter. The 
gray-haired man, who did not dare venture into an 
American vessel, recognized my husband, whom he 

285 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

had slightly known in the days of his prosperity. 
He was now an exile, a runner for a Cuban hotel. 
How eagerly and gladly he took possession of us 
and our belongings; how he piloted us through the 
narrow streets; how he domiciled us in the best 
rooms, and how assiduous he was in attention to 
our comfort, I cannot tell. 

A few years thereafter the poor old man, who 
had one daughter with him to solace his declining 
years, passed sadly away, and I was summoned 
from my plantation home to the stricken girl. She 
tearfully told me the story of his flight, which had 
never been revealed before, and, together, we turned 
the leaves of the worn and faded diary he had kept 
during that exciting voyage to the Spanish Domin- 
ion, where there was no extradition treaty to com- 
pel his deliverance to his country. In the early days, 
when there were no telegraphs, no cables, he man- 
aged to support his wife and daughters in New York 
by acting as commercial correspondent for several 
newspapers, both in New York and New Orleans, 
and Charleston also, I think; but that business died 
out, and be gradually became too infirm for any 
active or sustained occupation. 

His death was a blessed release. 



XXXVI 

CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES 

NOT a Confederate who was stranded In Ha- 
vana in the '6o's but can recall with 
grateful feelings the only hotel there kept 
by an American woman and kept on American lines. 
Every Confederate drifted under that roof-tree. If 
he possessed the wherewithal he paid a round sum 
for the privilege. If he was out of pocket, and I 
could name a score who were not only penniless but 
baggageless, he was quite welcome, well cared for 
and In several Instances clothed! Some, notwith- 
standing her "positive orders," exposed themselves 
to night air, when mosquitoes were most In evidence, 
and came In with headache and yellow fever. They 
were cared for and nursed back to health. No one 
knew better than Mrs. Brewer how to manage such 
cases. I could call the roll of the guests who came — 
and went, some to Canada, some to Mexico: Gen. 
and Mrs. Toombs of Georgia, Gen. Magruder, Gen. 
Fry and his beautiful wife, who was a MIcou of Ala- 
bama; Commodore Moffitt and Ex-Gov. Moore of 

287 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Louisiana; Major Bloomfield and his wife — some 
of us still remember Bloomfield. He had for years 
a blank-book and stationery shop in New Orleans. 
I have one of his books now, a leather-bound 
ledger. He was in service on somebody's staff. 
There were some not of the army, but on business 
bent, blockade running and so on. 

My gracious ! I can't begin to tell of the crowd 
that promenaded the galleries and azotea of Hotel 
Cubano toward the end of the war. They all talked 
and talked fight, the ex-army men declaring they 
would not return to their homes with sheathed 
swords. Alas! They did, though. Before their 
talks came to an end the Confederacy did. J. P. 
Benjamin arrived on a sailboat with Gen. Breckin- 
ridge. They were wise as owls and had noth- 
ing to say. I remember the news came of the 
assassination of President Lincoln while a large 
party of the braves were dining at our house — on 
the cerro of Havana. Some of them were jubilant, 
but a quiet word from Gen. Breckinridge: "Gentle- 
men, the South has lost its best friend," and a 
quieter word from Mr. Benjamin: "We will let the 
painful subject drop," acted as a quietus for our 
boisterous guests 

But I must not wander from our hostess of Hotel 
Cubano. A strange mixture was she of parsimony 

288 



CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES 

and prodigality, vindictiveness and gratitude, a 
grand woman withal, capable of doing heroic things. 
She knew intimately and had entertained the family 
of Pierre Soule, who tarried at the Cubano en route 
to Spain, when Soule was minister. The Slidells 
also were her friends, Jeff Davis' family and scores 
of other prominent people. She made the first do- 
nation of $500 to the Jefferson Davis Monument 
Association. With vigorous, watchful management 
she accumulated a large fortune in Havana, though 
she maintained a host of parasites, poor relatives 
from the States. She had four girls at one time 
belonging to her kindred who were too poor to 
educate them. But her business methods were too 
queer and unconventional for words. She had 
leased the large hotel long before the war in the 
United States, for what was, even in those dull days 
in Havana, considered a low sum, for the chance of 
making it pay was a trifle against her. She kept it 
American style — had batter cakes and mince pies — 
so that, though her prices were, as we say now, "the 
limit," every refugee and newspaper correspondent 
who was sick of garlic and crude oil diet, felt he had 
to live at the American hotel. Havana was then 
the refuge of defaulters and others of lax business 
methods, there being no extradition treaty between 
the United States and Spain. 

289 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

In Cuba when you rent a house, you pay by the 
month, and so long as you meet the payments, you 
cannot be dispossessed. (I do not know what the 
law may be now; I write of forty years ago.) Not 
long after Mrs. Brewer's venture proved a success, 
the owner tried every possible way to make her 
throw up the lease. Anyone knowing Mrs. Brewer 
as I did, could well understand there was no coercing 
her. She maintained her rights, paying rent with ut- 
most promptness, and when paper currency made its 
unwelcome advent and was legally declared of equal 
value with gold, the payments were made in paper. 
That currency depreciated steadily and so greatly, 
too, that Mrs. Brewer told me the rent of her base- 
ment to the German consulate for storage purposes, 
which rent she exacted in gold, was, when exchanged 
for paper currency, sufficient to pay the rent of her 
entire building. When I remonstrated with her as 
being unjust, she explained that all the years she 
had occupied the building the owner refused to make 
necessary repairs and alterations. She had been 
compelled to put in modern plumbing, repairs, paint- 
ing — in fact, everything — at her own expense, 
and now she was simply reimbursing herself. 
When she amassed a fortune, tired of the life, she 
threw up the lease, returned to the United States 
and a few years ago died at an advanced age. Her 

290 



CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES 

previous history is like a "story told by night." 
She was the wife of a United States army officer, 
stationed at Charleston, who eloped with his wife's 
seamstress. She did not know nor did she take steps 
to inform herself, where they fled. He had cashed 
his bank account and gone. In her shameful aban- 
donment she took passage on the first vessel leaving 
port for foreign lands. She arrived, a young, de- 
serted wife, in Havana, years before I knew her, 
homeless and friendless, and was removed from the 
schooner on which she made the voyage from 
Charleston ill of yellow fever. When she was 
ready to leave the hospital, it was found not only 
the small amount of money in her purse, but her 
jewelry as well, was barely sufficient to pay her ex- 
penses. When she recovered, she speedily found 
work in Havana, sewing in the house of a Spanish 
marquesa, who became deeply interested in the case 
of the forlorn woman, eventually assisting her in 
getting an independent start at keeping a boarding 
house for foreigners in the city who chafed at Cuban 
cooking. 

A proposition had been made to Mrs. Brewer 
by two or three American refugees to keep house h 
for them, they to furnish everything, but the gen- 
erous marqiicsa vetoed the plan and offered to 
finance a better scheme. So Mrs. Brewer rented 

291 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

and furnished a small house, and the men came to 
her as boarders, thereby placing herself in a more 
independent position. From that small beginning 
sprung the largest, best equipped and most expen- 
sive — for her charges were exorbitant — hostelry in 
the island. Meanwhile the kindly marquesa went 
her way gaily in the fashionable wealthy society of 
Havana, Mrs. Brewer working and managing, toil- 
ing and accumulating in her own domain. They 
rarely met. 

When my family went to Cuba it was to escape 
from war troubles at home. We sought for rest 
and peace, but it was not long before we felt 
we may have "jumped from the frying pan into 
the fire." Rebellion soon became rife on the island. 
We, being neutrals, had occasional visits from both 
parties of the guerilla type. The captains-general 
sent at frequent intervals from the mother country 
ruled with severity. 

One morning while I was visiting Mrs. Brewer, 
the marquesa called, in a terrible state of mind. 
Her young son, an only child, had been arrested, 
imprisoned and sentenced to be executed as a rebel 
sympathizer. She declared to Mrs. Brewer that 
she and her friends were powerless to do anything 
in the case, and she implored Mrs. Brewer's assis- 
tance. It was grand to see how the American 

2Q2 



CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES 

woman responded. "Go to your home, possess 
your soul in peace, if you can. I will inter- 
cede with the Captain-general." She did, too. As 
I remember, Mr. Henry Hall was the American con- 
sul. A messenger was sent with flying feet to sum- 
mon him. By the time she had dressed herself in 
her finest finery and decked her person with all the 
jewels she could muster and had her carriage and 
liveried coachman ready, Mr. Hall had put on iiis 
official dress, both knowing how important it was to 
create an impression on the wily Spaniard. They 
looked as if they might be more than count and 
countess, marquis and marquesa themselves. 

Arriving at the palace, our consul obtained im- 
mediate access to the potentate. Mrs. Brewer was 
introduced with a flourish, and she at once proceeded 
to tell her story. She told of the extreme youth of 
the prisoner, too immature to be a volunteer on 
either side, too inexperienced to have any opinion, 
and so on, imploring him to spare the life of "an 
only son, and his mother a widow." The stern old 
man only shook his head and repeated that his or- 
ders were absolute and unchangeable. Mrs. Brewer 
fell upon her knees before him, declaring she would 
not rise until he at least commuted the sentence to 
banishment to Spain. She told him her own story; 
how she, a friendless woman, had been succored and 
30 293 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

comforted and assisted by the boy's mother years 
before. She had been grateful, but had never had 
the opportunity to prove the depth of her gratitude, 
I was still at Hotel Cubano, waiting, oh, so anx- 
iously, to know the result of the mission, when Mrs. 
Brewer returned radiant. She had gone from the 
palace with the sentence of banishment in her hand 
to the marqiicsa's home. The young boy sailed the 
following day to Spain. Mr, Hall told me after- 
wards he had never witnessed such a scene; had 
never heard such an impassioned appeal. "It would," 
he said, "have moved an image of stone." 



XXXVII 

"we shall know each other there" 

DID you ever hear the old Methodist hymn, 
"We Shall Know Each Other There"? 
It appeals to me rather strongly now, 
when I read a long list of the names of those already 
"there," who attended a meeting in New Orleans 
over sixty years ago, in behalf of Gen. Zach Tay- 
lor's nomination for the United States Presidency. 
Every name is familiar to me. Each one calls to 
mind the features of a friend, and every blessed 
one of them has long ago joined the Immortals. I 
trust they "know each other there." 

Here's the name of Glendy Burke, who promised 
me a gold thimble when I was a little girl making 
my first attempt at cross-stitch, if I would finish the 
footstool for him. I earned the gold thimble, large 
enough for my finger, long after I was grown and 
married. 

Cuthbert Bullitt and Levi Peirce! It seemed to 
require the presence of both to make a mass meet- 
ing a complete success. They lived almost side by 

295 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

side on St. Charles Street at that time. It was 
only the other day dear Mrs. Peirce died. She 
was born in 1812. I loved to visit the Peirces, 
though the daughters, Cora and Caroline, were at 
least ten years my senior. They never married, so 
managed to "keep young," though Caroline was 
an invalid. She laughingly told me she had rheu- 
matism of the heart and inner coating of the ribs, 
whatever that may mean. 

In 1849 her doctor ordered her to Pass Christian, 
so early that the hotel, which I have attempted to 
describe in a previous chapter, was not open for the 
season. I was invited to accompany the two sis- 
ters. At first we were the only guests in the hotel, 
but presently there arrived J. DeB. De Bow of 
"Review" fame, and another bachelor, lacking the 
giddy and frivolous elements, a Mr. De Saulles. 
Mr. Pierce had sent us forth in style, with a ma- 
ture maid, as duenna, to look after the three frisky 
misses, also a pack of cards and a bag of 
picayunes, to play that elevating and refining 
game of poker. I never enjoyed an outing more 
than those two out-of-season weeks at the old hotel 
at Pass Christian. 

The two bachelors did not bother us with atten- 
tions, but, strange to say, Mr. De Bow and 
I actually felt congenial, and after our return 

296 



"WE SHALL KNOW EACH OTHER THERE" 

to the city he made me sev^eral calls, and as the for- 
getful old lady remarked, "Might have been calling 
till now," but some busybody — I always had my sus- 
picions who — sent me at New Year's, with Mr. De 
Bow's card, a gaudily bound volume of "Poems of 
Amelia," the silliest of love trash. I still have the 
book; it's of the kind you never can lose. I showed 
it to him — so innocently, too, and thanked him the 
best I could for the uncomplimentary present. My 
old beau never called again. He was sensitive to 
ridicule, and seemed to have taken it an snieux. . . . 

However, all this is a sidetrack. Mr. De Bow 
was not at that meeting, but Col. Christy and J. A. 
Maybin were. They were not of the De Bow type, 
but their familiar names are on the list before me. 
Both the Chrlstys and Mayblns lived near the 
Strawbridges, way off Poydras Street. 

Here's the name of Maunsel White, too. Both 
he and Christy were colonels — I believe veterans 
of the battle of New Orleans — the anniversary of 
which, the 8th of January, Is always celebrated on 
the spot, and nowhere else I ever heard of. I never 
heard of one of Gen. Jackson's men that was just 
a plain soldier In the ranks. They all had titles, 
from Gen. McCausland, who lived near Laurel Hill, 
down. I was a friend of Col. White's daughter, 
Clara, and recall a delightful visit I made to their 

297 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

plantation, "Deer Range." It must have been in 
March, for the dear Irish gentleman had a holiday. 
All the bells were ringing the day in, when I rose the 
first morning, and the old gentleman, after singing 
for our benefit "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," 
proclaimed a plantation holiday. It was all great 
fun. 

S. J. Peters I knew after my marriage. He was 
a lifelong friend of my husband's. As long as he 
lived, and we were on our plantation, he sent us 
every New Year's a demijohn of fine Madeira, by 
that universal express of the day, the Belle Creole. 
I forget how Mr. Peters looked, or anything I ever 
heard him say, but one does not easily forget a 
yearly present of five gallons of choice old wine. 

Now here's the name of John Hagan. Isn't he 
the one who used to walk with two canes or a crutch? 
When I was a little child, of the credulous type, one 
of our darkies — the one that knew everything — 
told me "Dat man (speaking of a beggar that hob- 
bled by) walks dat-away, caze he ain't got no toes; 
you cain't walk lessen you got toes." I visited the 
Hagans once on their plantation and knew one of 
the younger sons, James, quite well, but he was the 
kind of beau that did not dance, and the dancing 
girls of my day had little use for such. So It is, my 
mind runs riot over this list, for I knew each name 

298 



"WE SHALL KNOW EACH OTHER THERE" 

and some incident in the life or doings of each, pops 
up before me, and sends my thoughts wandering 
afar. 

T. G. Morgan and W. W. McMain must have 
presented themselves as representing Baton Rouge. 
Both hailed from there. Besides they may have 
had a personal interest in the meeting, as Gen. Tay- 
lor was temporarily a neighbor, being in command 
at the Baton Rouge barracks. I wonder if those 
same barracks was not the only United States mili- 
tary station in Louisiana? 

In the beginning of the war we Baton Rouge 
folks seemed to talk as though it was the only one 
in the South — talked of holding it against all odds 
— of never furling that home-made Confederate flag 
that floated over it. We delighted in those first 
days in just such bombastic talk. When I say "we" 
I mean those who remained at home, and fired re- 
marks back and forth anent our invincibility. Very 
harmless shot, but it served to swell our breasts and 
make us believe we could conquer the whole Yankee 
land. However, when a few Yankees were good 
and ready to march in and demand that United 
States barracks, nobody said them nay. 

My dear father, no doubt, would have helped 
swell the crowd, but mercifully he had fought his 
life's battle and had joined a greater crowd where all 

299 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

is peace and rest. Col. John Winthrop was a nomad 
(doesn't that word stand for a modern globe-trot- 
ter?), a lawyer who practiced his profession part 
of the time, but shut up his office, picked up his 
amiable wife and skipped off at frequent intervals 
to the enjoyment of travel and foreign life. They 
lived when at home in a house on Royal Street, a 
house with two rooms on each of two stories, which 
was enough and to spare for two people in those 
days. The Winthrops entertained a good deal too, 
in a quiet, sociable way, musicales, card parties and 
suppers. The last time I saw them was during one 
of their trips. They were leisurely resting in a 
quaint hotel in Havana. Now they are in the House 
of Many Mansions, for the dear Winthrops years 
ago took the long, final voyage. . . . 

But I find I have wandered, like any garrulous 
old lady, into all the bypaths leading from the great 
committee meeting. After the nomination of the 
soldier for the Presidency, an office he neither sought 
nor desired, and for which he was not fitted, he 
made a farewell visit to Baton Rouge and his old 
quarters at the LTnited States barracks, to superin- 
tend the removal of his family and personal belong- 
ings. Of course, the little city that so loved the brave 
man was alive with enthusiasm, and rose to the ex- 
traordinary emergency of receiving a future Presi- 

300 



"WE SHALL KNOW EACH OTHER THERE" 

dent, to the tune of a fine satin-lined coach, a kind of 
chariot affair, and four horses! Such a sight was 
never seen there before, for there were no circus 
parades in those days, and if there had been they 
would not have honored small communities only ac- 
cessible by river and boat. The modest, reluctant, 
great man was transported in this gorgeous affair 
back and forth, with the pomp and ceremony so 
unwelcome to him. 

I did not happen to witness that first turnout, but 
I saw the same coach and four years after, a faded 
thing; it had been in the old stable at the barracks 
for years, where moth did corrupt, if the thieves did 
not steal. It was a sight that set all the little ne- 
groes flying to the gate to see this coach go lumber- 
ing down our river road, William S. Pike, the big 
man, the rich man, the banker with a capital B, on 
the box. Mr. Pike was Kentucky bred and could 
handle the reins of a four-in-hand as well as any 
stage driver in the Blue Grass region. He was col- 
lecting blankets for our soldiers, and made a 
hurried call (the road being long and busi- 
ness pressing) on us, just long enough to take 
every blanket we had, and the "winter of our dis- 
content" at hand, too; proceeded with grand flour- 
ish and crack of whip to Col. Hicky's, Fred Con- 
rad's, Gilbert Daigre's, on down, down to William 

301 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Walker's at Manchac, taking blankets everywhere. 
At nightfall the loaded coach was driven again 
through our gate, and the tired coachman told of 
great success while refreshing himself with some- 
thing hot and strengthening. The Daily Comet had 
published repeated appeals for blankets, which met 
with meager results, but Mr. Pike in his one trip 
in the old Gen. Taylor moth-eaten, rusty, rattling 
coach swept up every blanket that could be spared, 
and no doubt a good many that couldn't. The next 
call for blankets for our half-frozen men, busy in 
the mountains of Virginia, found us so desperate 
and demoralized that we gladly parted with our 
carpets. 

The next time — and I suppose the last — that the 
coach and four were called into service was when 
Gen. Breckinridge made the attempt to defeat the 
Federals in Baton Rouge. Mr. Pike got secret in- 
formation of the impending assault. The Gen. Tay- 
lor chariot — four mules this time, but Mr. Pike at 
the helm — well packed, tight as blankets, with the 
Pike family, was driven furiously out of town. 



XXXVIII 

A RAMBLE THROUGH NEW ORLEANS WITH BRUSH 
AND EASEL 

SEVERAL years ago I visited New Orleans 
with my artist daughter. She had heard in 
her New York home so many wonderful and 
surprising stories of her mother's child-life in the 
Crescent City that she was possessed with the idea 
such a fairyland must be a fine sketching field. We, 
therefore, gladly accepted the hospitality of a dear 
Creole friend, who let us go and come at all hours, 
in deference to (I was going to say our, but — ) my 
little girl's own free will. It was indeed a foreign 
land to her when she opened her eyes to the Creole 
life, the Creole home, the Creole street. Every old 
gateway and every tumbledown iron railing was 
an inspiration to her artistic mind. We spent happy 
days with brush and easel, wandering about the old 
French quarter, and the picturesquely dirty back 
streets. 

The very first day in the city happened to 
be a Sunday. She was up and ready betimes to go 

303 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

to the French Market, where I used to go once in a 
great while and take coffee at Manette's stall. It 
was a shock to her to see the ramshackle old mar- 
ket she had heard so much about, and whose praises 
had been sung to her by her Southern mother. No 
Manette. No stall where she could have been in- 
duced to take a cup of coffee; but a few steps off 
and a perspective view revealed to her cultivated 
eye the very sketch she wanted, the very thing she 
"came all the way to New Orleans for" — and a 
plan was formulated to go another day when the 
light would be more favorable. 

In our rambles down Royal Street we passed an 
open corridor, with a view beyond of a blooming 
bit of parterre. She paused to look in. I saw only 
the bright flowers and the vases covered with vines. 
She saw only an iron fretwork lamp suspended from 
the ceiling. Oh! that was too artistic for anything! 
Did I think the people In that house would permit 
her to sketch, from the entrance, that long corridor 
and that wonderful lantern? 

At that moment a pretty young girl passed 
through the shrubbery in the rear. I beckoned her. 
"Oh, yes, she knew mamma would be so happy." 
The work was arranged for the following day, when 
the light would be just right. While my little lady 
worked I wandered around the corridor. The stairs 

304 




A Courtyard in the French Quarter. 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

leading to the living rooms above seemed strangely 
familiar. It dawned upon me that I had walked 
years before up those very stairs. The little Creole 
girl crossed the parterre again, and was called to see 
the finished sketch. It was only a section of the 
corridor and the wonderful iron lamp. I ventured 
to Inquire if the Blenvenues had not occupied that 
house in the fifties. 

"Yes, indeed, my mamma was a Bienvenue." 
The child flew upstairs to tell her mamma, and 
quickly returned with an invitation for us. Mamma 
desired to see the sketch, and to meet the lady who 
had visited her elder sisters. My daughter, used to 
the cold formality of the New York life, was over- 
whelmed with the Creole cordiality, delighted to 
hear that the lamp which had attracted her was a 
real Spanish antique, and had been hanging in the 
corridor almost a hundred years; delighted to be 
shown the superb chandeliers in the parlors, almost 
as old; and to have a cordial invitation to come an- 
other day and make a sketch of the little parterres 
and of the rambling balconies in the rear. 

We did mean to go again, but so many striking 
exteriors and interiors caught the eager eye of the 
maiden with the easel that we did not have time. 
The very next day that roving eye stole a peep Into 
another enchanting corridor. Behold a wrecked 

307 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 




''Behold a Wrecked Fountain." 

fountain, long out of commission, with a dilapidated 
angel or sylph, or armless figure of some kind, cling- 
ing to it. There was another artistic temptation, 
but when she saw a pretty black-eyed girl washing 
clothes and playing at the same time with a saucy 
parrot it was simply irresistible. The girl was de- 
lighted to pose beside the fountain with Jacko on her 
finger. Her voluble mamma, en blouse volante, 
stood on the upper gallery and watched the work 

308 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

and commented, real Creole fashion. It was not a 
satisfactory bit of painting, but the girl was enrap- 
tured to accept it and could not have expressed 
greater appreciation if it had been a life-size por- 
trait in a gilt frame. 

Mamma would be hospitable, would have us see 
the faded old house, which had been a grand man- 
sion in its day. We saw evidences of that in the very 
large rooms, the tarnished gilding, and the ample 
passages and old boudoirs. I think the blouse 
volante woman must have had chambres garnies, but 
we saw no evidence of that. She had the daughter 
play on the one bit of furniture that amounted to 
anything, the fine piano, which she did quite charm- 
ingly. From the rear gallery we could see the top 
of the Opera House, and she told us they were 
abonnees, "so her daughter could hear the best 
music." This was a glimpse of the old Creole life 
that I was glad my daughter should have. 

Wandering down, what to her was "fascinating" 
St. Anne Street, behold a narrow alleyway, revealing 
in the rear sunlight a cistern, only a cistern, but that 
atmospheric effect was alluring. Up went the easel, 
out came the color box. The street was absolutely 
deserted, and we felt quite secure of an uninter- 
rupted half hour; but a swarm of gamins came, ap- 
parently from the bowels of the earth, and sur- 
al 309 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

rounded us. At a critical moment a woman ap- 
peared, also from nowhere, and began to sweep dil- 
igently the little half-dark alley. She was trans- 
ferred to the sketch before she knew what was "go- 
ing on." "Mais gar! c'est Pauline, oiii, c'est Pau- 
line vieme," the little imps declared, as they peered 
over the artist's shoulder and saw the figure. That 
final touch broke all attempts at decorum, and we 
begged a passing man with a walking cane to put 
the mob to flight. 

What a delightful reminder of that visit to New 
Orleans those unfinished sketches are to us now, a 
quarter of a century after! The one I like best of 
all hangs in my own room and brings delightfully 
to mind the day we went way down Chartres Street 
to the archbishop's palace. I am not Catholic, and 
do not remember if it was the beginning or ending 
of Lent, but a procession of all classes and condi- 
tions of the faithful, with all classes and conditions 
of receptacles, were filing in and out the gateway, 
getting their annual supply of can benite. The lame 
sacristan who dipped out the holy water from pails 
into the bottles and mugs became so interested in a 
sketch my daughter was making, and so busy with 
a rod driving away inquisitive urchins, that he tired 
of being constantly interrupted by the eaii benite 
crowd, so he shut the door of his room. "Trop 

310 




■■'IllWO 



iifiip 






iiiiiippi" 



r 



"A Queer House Opposite." 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

tard, dest fiui," he said to some belated, dis- 
appointed applicants. 

Elise sat inside the gateway and sketched a queer 
house opposite, gable end to the street, and a bal- 
cony way high up that looked like a bird cage hang- 
ing from a window, a tiny balcony draped in bloom- 
ing vines. The sacristan was disappointed that she 
did not attempt the old convent building, but the 
perspective from the street did not appeal to the 
artist, as did that one-sided building that seemed 
to have turned Its back to the street. 

When we came in after each day's delightful 
tramp my dear Creole friend looked over the 
sketches and told us of places we must not fail to 
visit — places she and I knew so well, and neither of 
us had seen for many, many years. 

We took an Esplanade Street car, as far as it 
went, then walked the Bayou road to a rickety 
bridge, on the further side of which was a quaint 
little rose-covered hut. To the artist's eye It was 
an enchanting cottage. It was a fearfully hot day, 
so we had a quiet half hour; not a soul passed, to 
pause and look on and question and comment. We 
had a hot walk back to our mule car, which did not 
have a fixed schedule of arrivals and departures, 
and we were fain to accept the shelter of a decent lit- 
tle cabaret. The proprietor came outside and In- 

313 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

vited us within, and his cordial invitation was rein- 
forced by a bustling Creole wife. How these peo- 
ple surprised Elise ! So generous, so unconventional 
they were. I added to her surprise by ordering 
beer! — the only visible way, it appeared to me, of 
repaying their hospitality. 

Another day we took a car in a different direction. 
When the car stopped — nowhere in particular, just 
came to the end of the rails — we walked on down, 
into sparse settlements, occasional fields, frequent 
crawfish ditches, to the Ursuline Convent, not a 
sketching trip this time, but a tour of observation. 
We had to tramp quite a bit, dodging now and again 
an inquisitive goat, of which my city companion was 
mortally afraid, following paths, possibly goat paths, 
for they meandered round about quite unnecessarily. 

At length we reached the little entrance gate, to 
learn it was not visiting day. It was warm, and we 
were warmer and very tired. Across the road and 
the two inevitable ditches was a kind of lych gate, 
I do not know what other name to give It, a cov- 
ered gateway and benches, where the family who 
lived behind the Inclosure could take the air, and. 
Incidentally, a bit of gossip, if they had any con- 
genial neighbors. We felt neighborly just then and 
promptly crossed the ditches and narrow roadway 
and seated ourselves quite en famille. 

314 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

Presently two young girls we had not seen pre- 
sented themselves and invited us to enter the house. 
Upon our declining with suitable thanks, a mother 
came from the house and a grandmother, and we 
had to accept the cordial hospitality, with a sneaking 
feeling we had invited it by appropriating the tempt- 
ing resting-spot. In the tiny parlor was a life-size, 
full-length portrait of a Confederate officer in full 
uniform. Captain Sambola, of the Washington Ar- 
tillery. 

They offered us refreshing eau sucree and had us 
go to the back gallery to see the pet peacock. 
Grandmere made him show off. "Tournez, mon 
beau, tournez un pcu," and the proud bird turned 
around and spread his gaudy tail. We still talk of 
that naive family and the peacock. The two 
young girls we saw in the yard had aprons filled 
with violets which they were gathering for the mar- 
ket. Mamma tossed quite a handful of the fra- 
grant blooms into an Indian basket and presented 
them to Elise. They showed us a near path to the 
car, and we realized we had previously lost our way, 
and made many unnecessary steps, but would 
gladly have done it all over again to have had 
that glimpse of Creole life. Nothing I could 
have told my children would have been so ef- 
fective as the little experience of the hospitality 

2,^S 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 



of the family of that "Capitaine en Washington 
/Irlilleric." 

Our hostess mentioned St. Roch's, and down there 








St. Roch. 

we went, easel and all. Those mule cars seemed to 
come to a final halt where there was no stopping 
place, and we always had to walk quite a bit to "get 
there," no matter where we were bound. We 
walked a few blocks and turned a few corners, and 
most unexpectedly ran into the grounds of the sanc- 
tuary. At the gatekeeper's little cottage we bought 
a candle and a book, I forget what it was about; and 
a leaden image of Saint Hubert, inscribed "Preser- 

316 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

vez nous du cholera." We seemed to be expected 
to make the purchases, so we did not wish to 
disappoint the modest expectation. At a favorable 
spot the easel was opened, and my little lady pro- 
ceeded to sketch a few tombstones and the belfry of 
St. Roch's. A kindly priest wandered toward us to 
say it was against their rules to allow any sketching 
on the grounds, but as the work was on the way 
(and he commended it) she could complete the pic- 
ture. Thus we strolled about the old city of my day, 
quite ignoring the beautiful Garden District of 
which everybody was so proud. 

Down went we to see Congo Square and the old 
calaboose. The first is about to be rechristened 
(some twenty and something street) and the other 
has gone off the face of the earth, but old Congo 
Square was still there, and the calaboose, too, when 
I took my daughter to see the New Orleans of my 
day. A man with his pail and long brush was white- 
washing trees in the square, and a dark-skinned 
woman was hanging red rags, probably flannel pet- 
ticoats, on a railing in front of a house. "How pic- 
turesque!" in Elise's eyes. She regretted she had 
not her brush and colors with her. 

A kindly friend escorted us one afternoon over 
the river to the old Destrihan plantation house, 
and the enthusiastic young artist, who had learned 

317 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

"Never to leave your pencil and pad In your other 
pocket," had a famous time sketching the broad 
stairway and the interior balconies, upon which all 
the upper chambers opened. The grand Destrihan 
house of my young lady days was dismantled and 
practically vacant, so we roamed around that in- 
terior gallery in and out those large rooms. I was 
full of tender memories of the generous family of 
only (as seemed to me) a few years ago. The lawn 
that extended to the river, where were always skiffs 
to take one to the city when Eliza Destrihan was a 
beauty and a belle, was now cut up into lots and 
built up in huts, for the accommodation probably of 
workmen on Barrataria Canal. 

Elise wanted to see the houses her mother had 
occupied. I knew they must be dreadfully run down 
at the heels, and I knew how I had told my chil- 
dren of the delightful life we had led in them. Now 
I was afraid my little girl would be disillusioned, 
and she was! We started on Customhouse Street, 
and I confess to a shock when I saw tickets reading 
"Chambres a loner" floating from the balcony where 
my sister used to walk and from whence she made 
signals or called across the narrow street to Mrs. 
Duncan Hennen, on the opposite balcony. I ob- 
tained permission to enter the broad corridor. It 
was lumbered up with trunks and theatrical stuff, 

318 



A RAMBLE WITH BRUSH AND EASEL 

and my dear father's old law office was filled with a 
smoking crowd of actors and actresses. It was the 
eating hall, and the late risers were taking their first 
meal of the day. We did not go upstairs, but I 
pointed out to the child my mother's window, where 
she sat so many, many Invalid days, and with a mois- 
tened eye turned sadly away from my first New Or- 
leans home. 

Wandering up Camp Street, at the corner of Julia, 
the whole Camp Street side of another and later old 
home seemed to be a carpenter shop. I wonder 
what the child thought, as she must have remem- 
bered the tales I had told of the dancing parties and 
dinner parties In that house where Henry Clay and 
Gen. Gaines, and all sorts of celebrities, were guests 
from time to time. The side gallery, where dear pa 
sat and smoked his after-dinner cigar, was all 
blocked up and covered with boards and carpenters' 
tools. The Canal Street house, near Camp Street, 
was clean gone, as completely gone as all the fine 
people that used to visit It. In Its place was some 
mercantile or bank building. I was too heartsick 
with the sad knowledge of the mutability of these 
mundane affairs to care what the new building repre- 
sented. 



XXXIX 

A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

IT was the year of the Exposition In New Or- 
leans that I arrived with my little daughter 
on a visit to a Creole friend. We left the 
train at the foot of Canal Street, and boarded one 
of those old-timey mule cars, in which the passen- 
ger drops his fare In a box and the driver sits on a 
stool behind a dashboard, reinforced with a stout 
facing of sheet Iron, and manages his mule, if he 
can. In our case he couldn't. A lot of excursion- 
ists, with gripsacks and useless overcoats, filled the 
little car. When they had deposited their coins, and 
the driver had counted them, and we were ready to 
start, Mr. Mule took "de studs" and refused to pro- 
ceed. When, urged by calls and whip, he let those 
husky feet fly against the dashboard, with deafen- 
ing and startling results, the wherefore of the iron 
protector was made manifest to us. Suddenly, as 
If electrified, the mule bounded forth, up crowded 
Canal Street, with race-horse speed. Our fellow pas- 
sengers. Eastern men, probably, and Ignorant of 

320 



A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

mule nature, jumped from the rear of that racing 
car, as fast as they dared. I held on to the scared 
little girl, for I had not lived on a plantation with- 
out having become acquainted with mule tactics. 
When our steed reached his destination, at the foot 
of Camp Street, there were no passengers in that 
car but ourselves. 

That was our first acquaintance with the queer 
transportation facilities of that date, but it was en- 
riched by others before our visit to the Crescent City 
terminated. 

We found our friend, dear Phine, in considerable 
excitement about a trunk filled with silver, that had 
been in her keeping awaiting a claimant. The Louis- 
iana State Bank had, until the war, a branch in 
Baton Rouge, of which William S. Pike was presi- 
dent or manager, and his family, as w^as the custom, 
lived "over the bank." At the break up and dis- 
organization of all business, this especial Louisiana 
State Bank removed its assets (if there were any; 
assets were an uncertain quantity in those days) to 
the New Orleans headquarters. All the household 
effects of the manager's family — the accumulation 
of years, in garret and closets — were sent to New 
Orleans, and the Pikes moved there too. After the 
death of Mr. Pike, the family closed their Camp 
Street house and went to Canada. Thence a re- 

321 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

quest came to my friend, Phine, whose whole unsel- 
fish existence had been spent for the help of others, 
to pack away personal effects, have the furniture 
sold, and the house put also on the market. 

Looking through boxes and trunks and bundles 
and barrels, she stumbled upon an old, weather- 
worn, almost dilapidated trunk, without hasp or 
lock, but securely tied with bits of strong rope. It 
was found to be filled with silver, bowls, a tea set 
and various odd pieces. Not one article bore a 
mark by which it could be identified, not a scrap of 
paper — all the pieces were wrapped in rags and se- 
curely packed into this apparently unsafe receptacle. 
Phine knew that this silver did not belong to the 
family, nor to any friend of the family. The trunk 
was conveyed to Phlne's garret, and she sat down 
to rack her brain about it. At last it was decided 
that in the uncertainty and alarm of the early war 
days, some planter brought that trunk to the bank 
at Baton Rouge, for safe keeping, using every pre- 
caution to avoid suspicion of its valuable contents. 
Probably it came, tied behind his own buggy. There 
it had lain for years, nobody now left to give any 
information regarding it. Phine wrote to Mr. 
Pike's brother at Shreveport, and he knew naught 
of it, but he advertised it, with the usual "prove 
property" clause. 

322 



A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

In time, a man answered, stating his wife was a 
very small child during the war, but she remembered 
a quantity of family silver had been removed from 
her father's house. She was now the last remain- 
ing one of her family, but she could identify one 
article in the lot, a unique urn-shaped pitcher, of 
which she submitted a drawing, from memory. The 
trunk with its valuable contents had just been dis- 
patched to the woman 

My little daughter and I took many rambles 
down Into the picturesque parts of the old city. 
I presume In New York it might be called slumming, 
but every old crawfish ditch and dirty alley was dear 
to me. Even the old French cemeteries down Basin 
Street were full of tender memories. When we 
went home from such tramps, and Elise told, in 
her graphic way, of the tumble-down appearance of 
whole streets that mother was so enthusiastic over, 
our genial host, Phine's husband, would say, "Why 
don't you go up St. Charles Avenue? We fixed that 
up fine to show to visitors." But St. Charles Ave- 
nue had no sweet memories for me. It had not 
existed In my day. We saw St. Charles Avenues 
every day, at home. We had no old French ceme- 
teries, the Inscription on almost every tomb calling 
forth memories of dear, departed Creole friends. 

The old cathedral and Its environs had to 

323 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

have several visits. I had to show my little girl (oh, 
how reminiscent I was, to be sure!) the very shop 
whose windows I used to look into, at the beads, 
corals, shells, etc., from Southern seas. And, my 
dear, the very man with gold earrings was there, 
shuffling around with strings of rough coral beads, 
and conch shells, that very man (so it seemed) — and 
he was not a day older — that was doing that very 
thing seventy years ago, when I had to tip-toe to 
get a good view of that entrancing interior. 

In the narrow street by the cathedral we pur- 
chased rosaries for our Catholic maids at home. 
We walked up and down the narrow way, looking 
for a tiny shop where I had bought, years and years 
ago, materials and a book of instruction for the 
making of paper flowers. Roses and jasmines and 
pinks and honeysuckles were hung in lavish profu- 
sion all about my plantation home, and they lent 
quite a festive charm on wintry, rainy days, when 
there was not a blooming plant to be had. I was 
reveling so far into the sweet past that I was almost 
surprised that the hustling little French woman (of 
sixty years ago) was not there, behind her stack 
of paper goods, like the man with the gold ear- 
rings, but she wasn't, and the very shop was gone, 
too. 

We sat, to rest, on benches in the old Place 

324 




Q^^j^ /u^&ii^ 



A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

d'Armes. I looked at those Pontalba buildings, 
that faded, dilapidated, ramshackle row, and re- 
membered how fine and Imposing it was, in my day, 
and how I had wished that father would take one of 
those elegant houses, where we would be so near the 
French market, and the shop of beads and shells, 
and monkeys and parrots. 

We strolled up Royal Street, and the little girl 
saw the house in which the Boufords lived, sixty 
years ago. The saucy child ventured to remark 
she always had thought I visited nice people, but 
they must have lived in shabby houses. I did not no- 
tice her comment, but proceeded to point to the bal- 
cony where I stood to see a Mardi Gras procession, 
a frolicsome lot of the festive beaux of the period, 
and to catch the bonbons and confetti they threw at 
us from the landeaus and gaily decked wagons. It 
was long after the Mardi Gras of the thirties, and 
long, long before the Mardi Gras of to-day, a kind 
of interregnum, that the young fashionable men were 
turning into a festival. I recall Mrs. Slocomb's dis- 
gust when Cuthbert fell ill of pneumonia, after his 
exposure that day. Cuthbert Slocomb was chubby 
and blond, and with bare neck and short sleeves, tied 
up with baby blue ribbon, a baby cap similarly dec- 
orated, he made a very good counterfeit baby, 
seated, too, in a high chair, with a rattle to play 
22 325 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

with. The "mamma" had long black ringlets and 
wore a fashionable bonnet. I have forgotten, if 
in fact I ever knew, what youth represented the 
mamma. There were no masks, but the disguises 
with paint, powder and wigs were sufficient to make 
them unrecognizable. If Cuthbert Slocomb had not 
been ill, I probably would not have known the 
*'baby." 




A New Orleans Cemetery. 
During that visit I went to the cemetery Decora- 
tion Day. Mind you, I have seen about forty Dec- 
oration days. North — but this one in my own South- 
land, among my own beloved dead, has been the only 
Decoration Day I have ever seen In a cemetery. 

326 



A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

(I wish my feelings were not quite so strong.) Phine 
and I stood beside the tomb that contains the dust 
of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, a man I had known 
well, a contemporary and valued friend of my 
father's, a man whose children and grandchildren 
were dear to me. We saw the solemn procession 
file in, and halt a little beyond us. The band played 
"Nearer, My God, to Thee," and hundreds of 
voices joined in the musical prayer. I could not 
sing, I never could, but I could weep, and my eyes 
were not the only moist ones in the assembly. Such 
a throng of sober, sad people there was, such a lot 
of veterans, many in shabby, weather-stained gray, 
that bore evidence of hard service. . . . 

Phine had kept track of the people from whom I 
had been so long separated that age had obliterated 
means by which I could recognize them. As a vet- 
eran, in the shabby old gray (I felt like taking every- 
one such by the hand), approached, Phine caught 
my arm and whispered "Douglas West," and at the 
same moment his eye met mine with a flash of recog- 
nition. I had not seen Douglas for over thirty 
years. And weren't we glad to meet? on that 
ground, too, so sacred to both of us. And didn't 
we meet and meet and talk and talk, many times 
thereafter, in Phine's dear little parlor on Caron- 
delet Street? Indeed, we did. 

327 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Later on, Phine whispered, "You knew that man, 
I'll tell you who he is after he passes us." A quite 
tottering, wrinkled, old man passed. I gave him a 
good stare, shook my head. I did not know, nor 
think I ever had known him. It was A. B. Cam- 
mack — who would have believed it? He was a 
bachelor in 1850, the time when I thought a man of 
thirty was an old man. We happened to be fellow 
passengers on that fashionable A No. i steamboat. 
Belle Key. I was a frisky young miss, and Mr. 
Cammack was, as I say, an old bachelor. He did 
not know, nor want to know anybody on the boat, 
but it happened he was introduced to our small 
party, at the moment of sailing, so we had a reluc- 
tant sort of bowing acquaintance for the first day 
or so. Broderie Anglaise was all the rage. Any 
woman who had time for frivolite, as the Creoles 
called tatting, was busy working eyelets on linen. 
Of course I had Broderie, too. Mr. Cammack grad- 
ually thawed, and brought a book to read to me 
while my fingers flew over the fascinating eyelets. 
The book, I distinctly remember, was "Aunt Patsy's 
Scrap Bag," a medley of silly nonsensical stuff, writ- 
ten by a woman so long dead and so stupid while she 
lived that nobody even hears of her now, but Mr. 
Cammack was immensely entertaining and witty, and 
we roared over that volume, and his comments there- 

328 



A VISIT OF TENDER MEMORIES 

on. I have often dwelt on that steamboat episode, 
but I doubt if it ever gave him a moment's thought. 
I really think if it had been like my meeting with 
Douglas West we might have had quite a bit of fun, 
living again that week on the Belle Key. A hearty 
laugh, such as we had together, so many years be- 
fore, might have smoothed some of the wrinkles 
from his careworn face, and a few crow's feet out 
of mine. But he never knew, possibly would not 
have cared if he had known, that we almost touched 
hands in the crowd on that Decoration Day. 

On and on we strolled, past a grand monument 
to the memory of Dr. Choppin, whom I knew so 
well, and loved too, girl fashion, when he was 
twenty, and who sailed away, boy fashion, to com- 
plete his medical education in Paris. Maybe if we 
had met, in the flesh, on that Decoration Day, it 
might have been a la Cammack. We never did 
meet, after that memorable sailing away, but he has 
a tender niche in my heart even yet, and I was 
pleased to see some loving hand had decorated that 
sacred spot. 

Phine and I strolled about after the ceremonies 
were completed. She had a toy broom and a toy 
watering pot in the keeper's cottage, and was reluc- 
tant to leave before she had straightened and fresh- 
ened the bouquets we had placed on the tombs of 

329 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

the dead she loved, and swept away the dust, and 
watered the little grass border again. 

A year ago she herself fell asleep and was laid 
to rest in the lovely cemetery, and with her death 
the last close tie was broken that bound me to New 
Orleans. 



ELIZA MOORE, tenth of the twelve children 
of Richard Henry and Betsey Holmes 
Chinn, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, 
on the first day of February, 1832. 

Three years later Judge Chinn moved his family 
to New Orleans, where he continued the practice of 
law until his death in '47. 

On August 24, 1852, Eliza Chinn and James 
Alexander McHatton were married in Lexington, 
and for ten years thereafter they lived at Arlington 
plantation on the Mississippi, a few miles below 
Baton Rouge, leaving hastily in '62, upon the ap- 
pearance of Federal gunboats at their levee. 

During the remainder of the war they lived 
almost continuously in army ambulances, convoying 
cotton from Louisiana across Texas to Mexico. 

In February, 1865, they went to Cuba, and lived 
there until the death of Mr. McHatton, owning and 
operating, with mixed negro and coolie labor, a 
large sugar plantation — "Desengaiio." 

After her return to the United States Mrs. Mc- 
331 



SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD NEW ORLEANS 

Hatton was married to Dwight Ripley, July 9, 1873, 
and the remainder of her life was passed in the 
North. In 1887 Mrs. Ripley published "From 
Flag to Flag" — a narrative of her war-time and 
Cuban experiences, now out of print. 

The reminiscences which make up the present 
volume have been written at intervals during the last 
three or four years. The final arrangements for 
their publication were sanctioned by her the day 
before she passed away — on July 13, 19 12, in the 
eighty-first year of her age. 

E. R. N. 



(1) 



^^ 






UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK. 



A Virginia Girl in the Civil War. 

Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate 
Major's Wife who followed her Husband into Camp at 
the Outbreak of the War. Tyined and Supped with General 
J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and was 
in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and 
edited by Myrta Locke ft Avary. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 
net ; postage additional. 

"The people described are gentlefolk to the back-bone, and the reader 
must be a hard-hearted cynic if ht- does not fall in love with the ingenuous 
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" The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The beginning of 
the end of the long and desperate struggle is unusually well told, and how 
the survivors lived during the last days of the fading Confederacy forms a 
vivid picture of those distressful times." — Baltimore Herald. 

"The style of the narrative is attractively informal and chatty. Its 
pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a cruel period of our national 
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" This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and woman, and 
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" The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is always warmly 
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" Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment, dulled 
all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes, a work of this kind 
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with two great strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events • fiction 
lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality ; such works as this must be 
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of theatres, author, painter and sculptor. She turned 
her theatre into a hospital during the Siege of Paris. 
She played French classics in a tent in Texas. She 
wrote ** Memories of Mv Life " with her own hand, 
and with her own inimitable verve. 

" Great is Bernhardt, and great is any true description of her life, 
for nothing more fascinatingly brilliant could have come from the mind 
of the most daring of fictionists. The autobiography is as interesting 
to those who care nothing for the theatre as to those devoted to it." 

— Baltimore Sun. 

" It is the work of a genius which feels and sees with instinctive in- 
sight and understanding, and puts into words such a bright and varied 
panorama of life as it has been given to few authors to portray." 

— Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

" Out of an overflowing reservoir of reminiscence the author pours 
out a flood of anecdote and of dramatic story, and she always gives the 
idea that she is only skimming the surface and that other treasures lie 
always below." — San Francisco Argonaut. 

" The book is interesting and entertaining from cover to cover, and 
is related with a vivacity that is engaging." — Toledo Blade. 

"The eventful life lived by Madame Bernhardt both on and off the 
stage is told with great charm. Not only has the greatest actress of her 
generation more to tell than the majority of persons who write memoirs, 
but she has the gift of recounting the things that have befallen her with 
a real literary skill." — Publishers' Weekly. 

D . A P P L E T O N AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



DOBBS BROS. 

LIBRARY BINDINB 



ST. AUGUSTINE 



